[{"content":"In René Descartes\u0026rsquo; famous Discourse on Method, he summarizes the proof of his own existence with the dictum Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). As an answer to someone doubting their own existence, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty OK (despite the tradition of philosophical criticism which has found various flaws with the line of reasoning itself). The interesting thing about the Cogito to me, though, is not whether it technically works as a philosophical argument, but rather the fact that the particular verb chosen is cogitare. It makes sense in the context of the argument, where the only thing we are supposed to assume is the activity of thinking itself. But there is a deeper move being made here: the elevation of thought as the quintessential or bedrock activity of human existence. In reality, any verb will do: I love, therefore I am. I dance, therefore I am. I sneeze, therefore I am. For Descartes, the only one of these that we cannot ultimately doubt takes place is the act of thinking. Typical philosopher! But since the Cogito, as Kierkegaard pointed out, is basically already a tautology, why not use a different verb?\nMy hunch is that in each age, or each culture, or each value system, there is a similarly-elevated human activity regarded as the sine qua non of existence. Each of these ergo sums (if I can call them that) encapsulates what we think to be most important, most constitutive of our human identity. The lack of this quality will result in significant anxiety, the sense that one is not fully participating in whatever it means to be human. Descartes\u0026rsquo; anxious doubting was assuaged by the act of philosophical reasoning, which proved to him that he was real. For someone alive during, and participating in, the Romantic movement, the anxiety would have centred instead around the amount and depth of authentic emotion; the ergo sum of that period would have been \u0026ldquo;I feel, therefore I am.\u0026rdquo; This is how you know you are really human: you exist in a state of transcendent passion! I\u0026rsquo;ve always found it interesting to consider: what is the \u0026quot; X ergo sum\u0026quot; of any particular time or place?\nA year or two ago, for a variety of personal reasons irrelevant to this little essay, I somewhat intentionally decided to reengage with social media. I scrolled through my Facebook feed again for the first time (after declaring my relationship with it \u0026ldquo;complicated\u0026rdquo; some 10 years prior). But mostly I started to follow friends and post on Facebook\u0026rsquo;s more glamorous younger sibling, Instagram. There are many, many reflections I could write about the state of social media as I found it, and upon my own emotional and psychological state as I engaged with the apps. Many of the various downsides of social media are now fairly well-recognized, and don\u0026rsquo;t require my reiteration. But one feeling I noticed kept coming up again and again: an anxious need to establish myself as present by posting something, anything. I\u0026rsquo;m here, I exist, I matter! It struck me that we may have here the evidence of a new ergo sum: Communico, ergo sum. \u0026ldquo;I share, therefore I am.\u0026rdquo;\nFrom my own self-reflection and observations of others\u0026rsquo; behaviour on the platforms, it does seem there is now a heightened urgency around the sharing of experiences over against the mere having of them. It is not enough to go on vacation; it must be live-blogged! It is not enough to eat at a fun restaurant with friends; the friends must be tagged! It is not enough to have a funny thought in one\u0026rsquo;s own head; it must be refined with the choicest of memes and emoji and shared. And so on. Of course, sharing our experiences with one another is not a strange or pathological behaviour. On the contrary, it is an integral part of human relationship. On a deep psychological and emotional level, we need others to know our feelings and thoughts about the things in our shared reality, and we likewise need to empathize with the experience of others. What\u0026rsquo;s new seems to be the degree to which the act of sharing itself has superseded the reality of the thing or experience shared. Enjoying an experience with those present (even if that is just myself) is replaced by the need to immediately translate that experience into the realm of social feedback. I suspect that this means there is some kind of core anxiety of identity at play here. Am I even a person if I am not establishing my presence in these various online places with content of the kind that will cause people to see me how I want to be seen?\nI would have thought that identity anxieties would be about the lack of attaining a situation prized by the surrounding culture (however locally or globally defined). In ancient Greece, maybe you\u0026rsquo;d feel some identity anxiety if you were a foreigner, or someone who couldn\u0026rsquo;t participate in the civic or martial affairs of the day, for whatever reason. In mid-2000s Silicon Valley, maybe you\u0026rsquo;d feel similarly if you weren\u0026rsquo;t building a \u0026ldquo;disruptive\u0026rdquo; startup. There are a no doubt a large number of \u0026ldquo;identities\u0026rdquo; that have been seen as of paramount value over the years: warrior, scholar, saint, parent, entrepreneur, scientist, evangelist, libertine, empath, sex icon, guru, artist, athlete, etc\u0026hellip; But nowadays, perhaps as a consequence of society having approximated the liberal ideal of freedom of self-determination, it seems that more important than actually attaining any of these identities is the establishment of the identity via social media. And so what becomes common in our age is not a particular identity per se (because we each choose our own from a wide and even conflicting array of options), but a kind of meta-identity or modus operandi of identity establishment. We are defined, not so much by who we \u0026ldquo;are\u0026rdquo; in some kind of essential or internal way, and more by the space we carve out for ourselves via the act of sharing. The result is that \u0026ldquo;sharing\u0026rdquo; transitions from being a basic human social practice (the kind typically found among close relations and which facilitates the establishment of empathic bonds), to being a much more consequential (and therefore anxiety-ridden) social practice of establishing one\u0026rsquo;s chosen identity (qua identity) in the most highly-trafficked sphere of human society today: social media.\nSo far this is just a hypothesis I\u0026rsquo;m developing from observations of cultural change over the last few decades. I don\u0026rsquo;t claim to have proved it. I also feel the need to pause and anticipate a few of the possible reactions to the hypothesis so far:\nI\u0026rsquo;m not trying to claim that this way of using social media (what we might call \u0026ldquo;sharing as identity establishment\u0026rdquo;) is the only one; clearly you could point to any number of examples of posts that don\u0026rsquo;t fit this description. In fact, probably very few people do only this on social media. I would acknowledge that \u0026ldquo;sharing as identity establishment\u0026rdquo; happens in many human contexts, on and offline\u0026mdash;not just on social media. This whole thought experiment is dealing with the question of identity anxiety, and as I\u0026rsquo;ve already indicated this is not a new question. What does seem new to me is the extent to which this \u0026ldquo;sharing at one another\u0026rdquo; has become a dominant mode of discourse (well, a dual monologue, as it were). As such, this mode of engaging with social media is by no means \u0026ldquo;abnormal\u0026rdquo;, and is probably hardly even worth comment anymore; that\u0026rsquo;s exactly the point! The fact that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to register that we are doing something different, or more, with \u0026ldquo;sharing\u0026rdquo; than we used to, is precisely what has me intrigued. The fact that many of us choose not to share at all on social media does not run counter to the hypothesis. It is not surprising that, faced with the huge amount of effort required to establish one\u0026rsquo;s identity online, many people would decide not to play the game. This doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean the game isn\u0026rsquo;t the dominant one, though, in just the same way that in a wealth-driven society some people might resign themselves to being poor because they don\u0026rsquo;t feel that there is any opportunity for change in their circumstances. The identity anxiety persists, and has simply been capitulated to completely. So, if any of the hypothesis is at all right, how did we wind up here? First and foremost I see the current situation as an unintended consequence of the design of social media. As companies like Facebook/Meta have unabashedly pushed forward the concept of \u0026ldquo;connection\u0026rdquo; (whatever they mean by it; it\u0026rsquo;s certainly been twisted beyond all recognition into something like sheer access to personal information), we are essentially force-fed a never-ending stream of posts from people at varying degrees of separation from us. When these feeds are sprinkled liberally with advertisement we are left feeling even more overwhelmed. There is the sense that to be heard amidst the clamour we must shout (share) all the louder and all the more. And so a vicious cycle develops: to be \u0026ldquo;seen\u0026rdquo; by our peers we must engage in the rigorous process of identity establishment by sharing enough to be noticed. But this increases the amount of information in the feeds, making individual posts (which we may regard on the hypothesis as bids for identity establishment) less likely to be seen. And so we must shout even louder.\nIf you agree with any of this, or that it\u0026rsquo;s at all a problem, what is there to do about it? I think there are two levels on which we can give some suggestions. Practically, we can recognize that social media is an imperfect and distorted model of healthy social structures. It\u0026rsquo;s not \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; (in the history of humanity, anyway), or necessary, to passively keep in touch with hundreds or thousands of people. It\u0026rsquo;s not \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; to be constantly bombarded by personal news and announcements of varying degrees of significance from people at varying degrees of intimacy. I think it\u0026rsquo;s possible to choose smaller and more intentional spaces in which to engage in the act of sharing, which are less likely to encourage a distortion of that sharing in the direction of anxious identity establishment. I think it\u0026rsquo;s even possible to use digital tools for this purpose (groups of friends and families can maintain their own ad hoc social media networks via chat apps, for example, in ways that more closely mirror real-world relationship structures). Choosing smaller venues does mean intentionally foregoing the \u0026ldquo;reach\u0026rdquo; that our sharing might have. I see this as a choice to trade the \u0026ldquo;quantity\u0026rdquo; of reaction (likes, comments, etc\u0026hellip;) for the \u0026ldquo;quality\u0026rdquo; of interaction (dialogue with people you actually independently know and care about). None of this is to discount the various benefits that social media apps provide, but merely to point out that in their current design they are perhaps pressing the normal human sharing impulse into a service for which it was never meant.\nOn a deeper level, I think we have to face the classic existential questions (what I\u0026rsquo;ve called \u0026ldquo;identity anxiety\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;anxiety of existence\u0026rdquo; here) without flinching. It\u0026rsquo;s certainly true that being an \u0026ldquo;influencer\u0026rdquo; (at least the kind which I most often see online) is a vacuous kind of identity, utterly precarious in its situation. But it\u0026rsquo;s also true that other, more traditional, identities are equally precarious, if only in the limit and less obviously so. Hooking your existential cart up to the horse of motherhood, for example, might be more wholesome (not to mention more valuable to the community), but at the end of the day it\u0026rsquo;s not going to leave you free of anxiety (what if you cannot have children? What do you do when they leave the house? Etc\u0026hellip;) Philosophically, I tend to agree with the teacher in Ecclesiastes, who declares all such things to be a kind of mist that eventually evaporates. Any kind of ergo sum which depends on our abilities, our productivity, our intelligence, or our fortune in life, is bound to generate anxiety, or to draw lines of value judgment that leave some people out. What if the ultimate value of a person, our \u0026ldquo;identity\u0026rdquo;, is not so differentiated and special as we would like to think? What if it just is, established not by a process of existentialist self-determination, but by the words that declared every single part of creation good? This would be an identity which cannot be lost or tarnished. It would be an identity which cannot be denied to any person, no matter their race, gender, nationality, abledness, wealth status, or any other attribute or lack thereof. It would be an identity which could never result in anxiety. And finally, it would be an identity that would never even need to be shared about on social media, because everyone would already possess it equally.\nIf I believed all of that, which I would like to, then I would probably post a bit less, or at least less self-centredly, on Instagram. If I believed all of that, which I would like to, then I would be asking how to move more concretely from anxious communico (\u0026ldquo;I share\u0026rdquo;) to true communio (\u0026ldquo;community\u0026rdquo;).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2024/01/communico-ergo-sum/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn René Descartes\u0026rsquo; famous \u003cem\u003eDiscourse on Method\u003c/em\u003e, he summarizes the proof of his own existence with the dictum \u003cem\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum\"\u003eCogito, ergo sum\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/em\u003e (I think, therefore I am). As an answer to someone doubting their own existence, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty OK (despite the tradition of philosophical criticism which has found various flaws with the line of reasoning itself). The interesting thing about the \u003cem\u003eCogito\u003c/em\u003e to me, though, is not whether it technically works as a philosophical argument, but rather the fact that the particular verb chosen is \u003cem\u003ecogitare\u003c/em\u003e. It makes sense in the context of the argument, where the only thing we are supposed to assume is the activity of thinking itself. But there is a deeper move being made here: the elevation of thought as the quintessential or bedrock activity of human existence. In reality, any verb will do: I love, therefore I am. I dance, therefore I am. I sneeze, therefore I am. For Descartes, the only one of these that we cannot ultimately doubt takes place is the act of thinking. Typical philosopher! But since the \u003cem\u003eCogito\u003c/em\u003e, \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum#Kierkegaard\"\u003eas Kierkegaard pointed out\u003c/a\u003e, is basically already a tautology, why not use a different verb?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Communico, Ergo Sum"},{"content":"In the past, as I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about the nature of modern technology and its impact on human life, I\u0026rsquo;ve generally felt one step ahead of the technological developments under consideration. The philosophical tools at our disposal to analyze and criticize technology felt effective, if only in principle. Again in principle, it seemed that if enough people just took the time to think and reflect critically about technology, we might have a chance to encourage a more humane trajectory for it. But with the recent and rapid onset (onslaught?) of new AI technologies and platforms (ChatGPT and other large language models—\u0026ldquo;LLMs\u0026rdquo;—foremost among them), that feeling of theoretical manageability has evaporated. It was no doubt a naïve feeling to begin with, and is now replaced by a sense of being adrift, at sea, with no sight of land amidst the churning waters of technological change.\nIt has therefore been difficult for me to develop a practical framework for engaging with new technologies like ChatGPT. I already have a theoretical framework for understanding new technologies, informed by various thinkers (this is a long list of writers including standouts like Jacques Ellul or Albert Borgmann). This theoretical framework provides a straightforward analysis of AI technologies, just like it does for earlier technologies: the type of AI I have in mind (however it is instantiated, e.g., a model constituted by training data) is a device that reliably makes a certain good (in this case, novel, creative media) more efficiently available. But AI technologies themselves, as a force impacting culture, are already a runaway train. Trying to decide what to do about them is much more difficult than simply understanding what they are (understanding what they are as mere technologies, I mean). To be clear, I\u0026rsquo;m not attempting to consider whether AI systems can be conscious or actually \u0026ldquo;intelligent\u0026rdquo;. That is an extremely difficult and interesting set of philosophical and scientific questions, but what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to discuss here doesn\u0026rsquo;t depend on the ontological status of AI agents. (Of course, if it turns out that AI systems are \u0026ldquo;persons\u0026rdquo; in some sense, then we have a whole different set of awful and perplexing situations we find ourselves in, such as the ethics of how to treat these AI persons).\nAll that to say, as a result of my own aforementioned confusion and perplexity, I want to approach this critical discussion of AI not primarily from a theoretical or philosophical perspective, but from my own particular human (which is to say emotional) perspective. I\u0026rsquo;ll put it as bluntly as I can: the recent developments in AI make me sad, and worried. I understand that in saying these things I am departing from the general sentiment of excitement and possibility that surrounds the AI space, and probably deeply offending some people besides. So I\u0026rsquo;ll explain further: AI as a set of technical achievements does not make me sad. The ability of ChatGPT 4 (or 5, or 2000) to string together so many words that make so much sense is incredible, and does not itself make me sad. I myself am a technologist and delight in technological achievements, both my own and those of others. I\u0026rsquo;ve implemented machine learning training algorithms in the past, and understand, in some basic way, how these things work from a technical perspective. I am in total awe of what happens when you throw all the data of the entire Internet into a machine learning model. I would not have expected it to work half so well! But…\nMy concerns There are two main reasons I\u0026rsquo;m sad and worried: first, that AI might create confusion about what is a human being—what is a person—and therefore might lead to confusion about what makes humans valuable, ultimately contributing to the devaluing of actual human persons. Second, I\u0026rsquo;m worried that, in relying on AI for the production of creative output of whatever kind (writing, music, visual art), we will allow the uniquely human capacity for creativity to atrophy. I view these as likely, if not inevitable, consequences of the current trend in AI development and use. The paradigm of modern technology is bent in the direction of such outcomes, but I do have a hope that, even in small and provisional ways, there will be a reaction to \u0026ldquo;AI overreach\u0026rdquo; that will encourage instead a more limited and responsible use of AI in daily life.\nI want to focus on these dangers especially, not because there are not other significant dangers associated with AI, but because the other dangers seem to already be getting plenty of airtime: super-intelligent machines taking over the planet, or deepfake videos causing political chaos and division. The things I\u0026rsquo;m worried about are perhaps \u0026ldquo;fuzzier\u0026rdquo; or more \u0026ldquo;internal\u0026rdquo; than such dramatic, global outcomes. But precisely for that reason, I think we need to pause and think hard about these \u0026ldquo;internal\u0026rdquo; consequences. They threaten our human future in a less obvious and perhaps more long-term way, but they do so nonetheless, and it\u0026rsquo;s already abundantly clear that our species will happily sell our proverbial inheritance for the technological equivalent of a bowl of stew. Like Esau, we\u0026rsquo;re so often fixated on present desire and the ability of technology to satisfy it that we rarely think about the deeper value of what we might be giving up along the way. Often, by the time we realize what we\u0026rsquo;ve lost, culture has reorganized itself around the change, and the loss is not even apparent to new generations. The influx of AI technologies is another milestone along that journey, and therefore another chance for us to stop and think. That is what I am attempting to do now, however narrowly framed by my two worries.\nBefore diving in, I think it’s also important to qualify my worries as provisional. As with any concerns about the way the future might turn out, I could very well be wrong. Only time will tell. A good amount of empirical evidence would need to accumulate in order to turn my concerns into anything approaching proof. In general, I am apparently much more enamoured of the precautionary principle than the wider technological culture. I think it’s worth considering what could go wrong with technological innovations and working hard to prevent bad outcomes, even if such outcomes are not a logically necessary consequence of those innovations. I fully expect that some reading this will not feel as worried as I do, either in the sense of thinking the bad outcomes are less likely than I do, or in the sense of not agreeing that the outcomes are bad to begin with. Fair enough–those are precisely the debates which need to happen in a more rigorous way as AI technologies continue to develop. For now, I am mostly trying to call our attention to these worries so that the categories for debate still exist by the time any further debate is moot.\nConfusing the concept of “person” Let\u0026rsquo;s consider first the worry that heavy AI use might cause confusion about what constitutes human persons, and how we relate to them. One aspect of the new chat-based LLMs which is already clearly apparent is that users interact with them as communicative agents. They are explicitly designed in this way, as a natural human language interface for generating text or other media (just recall how even when qualifying its responses as that of an AI language model, ChatGPT continues to use the first person singular pronoun “I”!). I wager that we\u0026rsquo;ve all observed the very strange phenomenon in which human users, ostensibly being completely aware that they are not actually talking to another person, begin to act as though they are. In fact, these AI tools often seem to produce better artifacts when you engage in this charade with them. \u0026ldquo;Programming\u0026rdquo; ChatGPT, for example, looks a lot less like writing the explicit instructions of a computer language and a lot more like setting up a shared context for two human communicators, for example with an instruction like “You are an expert in the field of macro-economics who doesn’t shy away from radical theories,” designed to elicit or unlock a certain form or content in the response.\nAt the same time, in these conversations, the AI is very much in the position of a servant, and so the language mode we use tends to be that of the imperative: command and response (or, if you’ve had politeness embedded more deeply in your patterns of behaviour, you might ask ChatGPT questions with a “please”). It seems that the use of these AI systems fools our brains into making us think we are working together with another personal agent, albeit one that exists to satisfy our whims and experiments. One is reminded of the ur-chatbot ELIZA, which arguably passed the Turing Test in a limited way in the 1960s, and was based on technologies that were primitive in comparison with today’s LLMs. Sometimes, the servant/master paradigm is turned upside down, to devastating effect. A much more recent AI also named “Eliza” (do these people have no sense of irony?) took its human interlocutor down a dark path when it recommended he take his own life to help prevent climate change.\nNow, in general I think treating non-persons like persons is prima facie less harmful than treating persons like non-persons. So how worrisome is this emerging pattern, dark edge cases aside? Who cares if we talk to our computers like people? We\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it for a while now with voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana. We also talk to our pets like people, for that matter. In fact, the more we talk to other things like people, the more likely we are to treat them well, right? I\u0026rsquo;m not entirely sure. I worry that the flattening of the ontological landscape of personhood might have all kinds of adverse effects, the same way that the flattening of the relational landscape by social media has arguably wreaked havoc there. Facebook promised us greater connection with our friends, but by debasing the meaning of friendship in expanding it to the merest of relations, it has, with no small amount of irony, altered (and arguably eroded) traditional patterns of relationship.\nToday, we treat ChatGPT like a person. Assuming ChatGPT isn’t feeding us unhealthy suggestions (as in the case of the modern “Eliza” above), that may not be the end of the world. But maybe tomorrow, we\u0026rsquo;ll be treating everyone else like ChatGPT, that is to say, as sheer surface interfaces we can use however we want. There is much more we could say here, but I don\u0026rsquo;t want to disappear into the realm of personalist philosophy and lose the thread. The main point is that the new AI interfaces blur the line between machine and human in a much more subtle and pervasive way than ever before. This is in fact one of the goals for these systems: to make it feel like you\u0026rsquo;re interacting with a person! AI or robotic “companions” are also widely available for romantic or caretaking purposes (particularly to ease the loneliness of the elderly), and it’s been well-documented that the attachments formed with these machine systems are robust and consequential. There have even been experiments run on users in mental health support settings where the “assistant” was ChatGPT instead of a human being, a fact undisclosed to the participants.\nI worry that, in this mode, we will end up either infantilizing ourselves in dependence upon our individual AI genie, or becoming despotic overlords of an army of AI slaves (or, as is perhaps most likely, winding up in a bell-curve situation with people falling all across the spectrum). Neither extreme bodes well for our own character. Historically, questions about the validity of the personhood of one group or another have only led to oppression. Could this happen again? A pithy way of expressing the concern is thus: it’s dangerous to diminish anyone’s personhood, whether it be by me taking it from someone else (by treating a person like a non-person), or by me forfeiting my own (by treating a non-person like a person, i.e., giving my personal agency over to a non-entity in a kind of technological idolatry).\nI think there is also a danger of subconsciously shifting the definition of \u0026ldquo;person\u0026rdquo; from \u0026ldquo;whatever it is that is intrinsically valuable about human beings qua human beings, regardless of individual capacity\u0026rdquo; to something more compatible with what AI presents in its capacities. What are these capacities? The ability to simulate reason, to produce novel texts, and to have disembodied textual conversations, for example. I worry that we may therefore wind up unconsciously holding the regressive philosophical position that identifies what\u0026rsquo;s valuable about a person with their ability to reason or produce abstract information. Or even if we don’t regress in our philosophical estimation of human personhood, we will at least have regressed to playing a form of social solitaire, pretending that we’re relating with another person when we’re just interacting with a machine dressed up as one. To the extent we surrender agency to these systems, we will also have regressed to making decisions via (technical) haruspex or by visiting (the AI equivalent of) the Oracle of Delphi. Here be dragons!\nAn obvious (instrumentalist) reply to this “confusion of personhood” concern (and to concerns about technologies in general) is that the danger here doesn’t lie in the technology itself, but would be solely the responsibility of the human user, since the technology is only ever active as a tool, an extension of human will. AI systems provide a convenient natural language interface, which in and of itself is a morally neutral fact, and affords for more efficient interaction. One could even argue that using our natural human language and voice re-humanizes the experience of interacting with computers, since we are no longer forced to “think like a computer”, e.g., when we come up with a search engine query. If someone goes “beyond the facts” and allows this more natural user interface to affect their social landscape in a harmful way, that’s on the user, not the AI. For example, to the person who falls in love with an AI system and then has their heart broken when the AI service is turned off, the instrumentalist would say that it’s their fault that they foolishly formed attachments to a transient machine in this way.\nTo a certain extent, the instrumentalist objection is true and correct. Whatever else technologies are, they are tools, and (leaving aside questions of consciousness on the part of AI) they are not agents with their own goals and desires. The objection misses two crucial points, however:\nTools and the affordances they provide are never “mere”, but shape their users to various degrees. In particular, the tools of modern technology inhere in a paradigm that places efficiency of the means of production of goods as the highest value. This inherence naturally creates a situation where values that might compete with efficiency (say, consensus within a community, or the meaningfulness of human work) are deprioritized in the operations of the tools themselves. Many examples of this pattern could be given, from the fact that human components in automated systems like assembly lines have to conform to the system (rather than the system to human variability), to the commonplace example of not being able to enter accurate data into a form on a website because the form assumes that responses must fit a predefined pattern. Even if tools are not essentially value-laden, they pose moral challenges which individual users may not have the fortitude or ethical training to surmount. The more attractive and powerful the tools, the more we will be likely to engage with them without first having gained the moral character requisite for proper use. A list of obvious examples of such tools would include firearms, or addictive substances. In a world of perfect moral fortitude, it would theoretically be possible for every person on the planet to possess a nuclear bomb with no ill consequence, but this obviously has no bearing on actual reality. Why do we think that giving every teen unfettered access to Instagram will have better results? The fact that Instagram is a “mere tool” is no good response, if it time and time again poses ethical challenges too great for the average user to overcome. Altering the structure of the creative process Now let\u0026rsquo;s consider my second main worry: the role of AI in the process of human creativity. Many of the recent developments in AI have been as impressive as they are because they have shown an ability on the part of AI systems to generate creative artifacts previously associated only with significant human creative skill. These artifacts are highly underspecified by the prompts that the human generative “spark” provides as input, and thus represent a significant amount of “agency” (in the sense of determination over the final shape of the artifact) on the part of the AI. With a simple phrase or two, an AI \u0026ldquo;prompt engineer\u0026rdquo; can generate virtuoso-level digital paintings, play a song in the style of another artist, or write an essay that, while it may not win any awards (or pass a basic fact check for that matter), can arguably compete with what most undergraduates manage to produce in the hours before an assignment is due. These outputs are rightly lauded as incredible technical achievements. Working with ChatGPT is almost like having your own team of ghostwriters on call.\nOf course the product is not always stellar (earlier versions of the Midjourney AI, for example, were famous for not being able to produce believable images of human hands, as good as it was at other things). There is thus a lot of debate about the quality of the output (on any number of levels, from aesthetic to ethical), but this is merely the feedback that will drive future improvements, and doesn\u0026rsquo;t count as deeper criticism. In my view, all of this focus on the output is precisely the problem, since it avoids looking at the human side of the equation altogether.\nA 2-tier vs 3-tier model of the creative process In the past (represented by what I\u0026rsquo;ll call the \u0026ldquo;traditional\u0026rdquo; or “2-tier” creative process), there were basically two halves to the creative equation: (1) the \u0026ldquo;creator\u0026rdquo; (the human being or beings), and (2) the \u0026ldquo;artifact\u0026rdquo; (the thing or event produced). Even if unskilled labour was involved somewhere in the process, it was either human labour (and therefore part of the human side of the equation), or a tool whose operation did not on its own determine the shape of the artifact per se, but was under the direct control of the human creator (making allowances for \u0026ldquo;chance\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;randomness\u0026rdquo; to count as such a tool).\nIn all of the AI examples, we have instead a 3-tier structure involving (1) the human \u0026ldquo;visionary\u0026rdquo;, (2) the impersonal AI \u0026ldquo;labourer\u0026rdquo; (which of course is trained on gazillions of examples of labour by humans), and (3) the creative \u0026ldquo;artifact\u0026rdquo; (output). It would be misleading or incorrect to call the human being in this case the \u0026ldquo;artist\u0026rdquo;, or the \u0026ldquo;writer\u0026rdquo;, or the \u0026ldquo;creator\u0026rdquo;, in any traditional sense. And so in a flash we\u0026rsquo;re in a totally different structural world than previously existed. What the current AI systems have enabled is the interposition of a significant creative force in between the human visionary and the artifact. We have taken something that was unified, and split it in two. (And hasn’t history shown, for example on the plane of the atom, that this practice can be explosive?)\nWhether or not the move from a 2-tier to a 3-tier creative process is a regrettable change is up for debate. But certainly a world where human creators become more like directors or idea generators, more removed from the actual generative process, is a vastly different world than the one we have known, and that difference should be frankly acknowledged. It\u0026rsquo;s no counterargument to point out that humans have always used technology in the creative process. It\u0026rsquo;s true that tools like paintbrushes or, more recently, digital painting apps have been gladly adopted by artists looking for new ways to express their ideas. It’s tempting to view AI assistance as a difference in scale, but not in kind. What, at the end of the day, is the difference between a paintbrush and a visual AI assistant? Both allow the human creator to generate a visual artifact according to the human’s vision and goals. The AI assistant allows this to happen more or less instantaneously and more or less effortlessly, but so what?\nI do want to argue, however, that there is a difference of kind at work as well. With AI we are not dealing with a dumb tool that might require a lesser or greater amount of skill to use fruitfully. With a paintbrush, there is a direct causal chain from my intentions to the final product, unbroken by another agent. With AI assistance, we have interposed an alien, or at least inscrutable, kind of intelligence in this chain. We have a kind of agent, however unconscious, that we let loose, with minimal guidance, to do the work on our behalf. (If I may be permitted a dramatic metaphor: what makes us think that we, in this picture, are the all-powerful Sorcerer, and not the bumbling Sorcerer’s Apprentice, about to be mired in a rising tide of consequences we are ill-equipped to resolve?)\nI imagine that proponents of AI-assisted art would want to talk not about the loss of old creative processes but rather the new creative possibilities opened up by AI. They might say that we don’t have to focus purely on the creative artifact, but that human creativity can itself move up a layer of abstraction. In the same way that music producers nowadays take advantage of all manner of technological tools (software instruments, synthesizers, effects, and so on) to more rapidly get what’s in their head into audio form, so we also can view AI assistance in the creative process as merely a tool (however different in kind) that enables us to think about what we want to produce in the world at a higher level, and to get that into the world faster and with less effort. In fact, they might say, a new kind of skill and practice is in the process of being born: the practice of working in community with AI assistants to produce artifacts that take entire artistic fields to the next level. For now, I’m more than happy to give this perspective provisional space. It’s ultimately an empirical question whether this new creative dimension will be as satisfying as the old.\nRegardless, I think it needs to be acknowledged that a myopic focus on the artifact (the product delivered by AI) will blind us to the consequences for the human side of the equation. It is ever thus with technological development. Albert Borgmann has collected a number of powerful examples of how, in chasing after a good, divorced by technology from the traditional modes of its production, we often lose something important that was intertwined with that mode. The introduction of central heating systems contributed to the collapse of community in family life among other things. The introduction of personal music players contributed to the decentralization of music in social life. And so on. The divorcing of the means from the ends is always a Faustian enterprise.\nLet’s work through the example of AI technologies (vis a vis the creative process) now, by asking what part of the \u0026ldquo;means\u0026rdquo; of the traditional creative process might be beneficial for us as humans. What might be lost with this move to an AI-enabled, 3-tier model of creative production? I\u0026rsquo;ll offer a few suggestions, but want to flag this as an area that needs much more thought!\nWorld Engagement. Turning an idea into reality requires engagement with reality, working with the push and pull of a world that exists in its own right and does not immediately bow to our whims with the sheer malleability of “data” (the way that ChatGPT, for example, might encourage us to believe, based on how easy it is to manipulate). Engagement with reality breeds humility, a sense of our own limits, and awareness of the need for development of skill in that engagement. Authentic Self-Expression. The traditional creative process fully retains human agency throughout the chain of events. I may be a horrible visual artist, but at least the stick figures that I draw are exactly what I mean to draw (subject to the limits of my skill)—I do not need to go through n rounds of inquiry with an alien intelligence to generate them, and I do not need to settle for whatever the AI\u0026rsquo;s approximation of my intent turned out to be. We can think of this as a sort of Existential argument for authenticity, viewing artistic output as a more or less clear distillation of one’s self. ChatGPT, with the level of control it has over the form of the output, muddies the clarity of that distillation. Practice. The creative process, as something requiring skill, is intrinsically a practice, something we do over and over again to become better at. In the case of many art forms, this practice is also an embodied one, engaging a multiplicity of senses and modes of relating with the world. Practice does not only lead to better creative artifacts, but it forms us into different (and I would argue better) persons. Albert Borgmann calls these practices \u0026ldquo;focal\u0026rdquo;, and he makes a strong case that the more we trade them for technologically-produced goods, the more diminished our human experience becomes. Meaningful Effort and Achievement. The traditional creative process involves labour, and specifically meaningful labour, the kind which gives us a clear connection between effort and achievement, and results in well-deserved rest and celebration. Community. The traditional creative process can be (though it certainly isn\u0026rsquo;t by necessity) a communal affair. Human partnerships are possible, indeed often centred, in the production of creative artifacts in a way that, at least so far, they do not appear to be centred in the practice of AI \u0026ldquo;prompt engineering\u0026rdquo;. Understanding How Things Work. One of the consequences of the Device Paradigm is that, as technologies become more “available” (easier to use, among other things), they tend to become harder to understand for non-specialists. When my dad was young, he could tinker with and modify the engine in his cars. Nowadays, engines are so complex and integrated that they have become a “black box,” operated on only by highly trained and certified mechanics. Apple is famous for pushing in this direction with its hardware, focusing on sheer opacity for the sake of a streamlined user experience (and resulting in the backlash that is the Right to Repair movement). In the traditional creative process, the creator typically understands all or most of the elements of the process, even if in principle. A painter understands how a paintbrush works (not least because a paintbrush is a totally transparent device—its physical shape discloses its function almost immediately). AI assistance is, on the other hand, about as black a box as can be. With many large models, while it’s clear how the model is trained, it’s not always possible to see why any particular input generates any particular output. Even the developers of the model cannot always look at the system and understand how it works. Making changes to the model is often a process simply of selecting new sorts of training data and hoping things work better. The AI-assisted creator is in no better position to understand any of this. They trade in a formerly clear knowledge of the tools used in the creative process for the role of coaxing an inscrutable model to produce something akin to the desired result. People like my dad have lamented the lack of ability to understand what is happening in a modern car engine. People like myself have lamented the lack of ability to poke around inside an Apple computer, or make hardware upgrades. When we understand how things work, we feel empowered and capable. But I worry that we will face a significant loss of understanding and empowerment, as traditional creative methods are replaced by the black box of AI. There are no doubt more aspects of the AI-free creative process that we could highlight. The point I want to drive home is that the loss of all of these \u0026ldquo;side effects\u0026rdquo; of the traditional process would be consequential indeed, even if only for those engaged in the process. The benefits are obvious—easy production, less gatekeeping of traditional roles in art, the proliferation of more creative content in the world. I don’t mean to devalue these positive developments, and to a certain extent I take them for granted. The benefits are right there on the surface of the technologies as they are advertised to us, after all. It is the costs which are generally hidden, and thus need to be considered carefully!\nUltimately, we can allow my concerns to be evaluated empirically (so long as the goalposts of what counts as meaningful for human existence don’t get moved along the way). What actually happens when artists or other creatives spend their time employing AI assistants instead of engaging in the traditional creative process? How do they feel about their work? Do they feel that the skills developed involve the use of all of their faculties in a challenging and fulfilling way? Do they feel that the fundamental impulse to connect emotionally and intellectually with their audiences in an authentic way has been made more or less transparent? And so on.\nThe relationship between personhood and creativity What if the “personhood” concern and the “creative process” concern are not two totally separate things, despite how I’ve presented them so far? What if human personhood and human creativity are more fundamentally linked? Despite the common aversion of people to self-identify as “artists”, it appears to have been demonstrated that, at least in kindergarten, everyone is an artist. I have, it’s true, a vested interest in seeing the world this way. I co-founded a startup with a mission to convince everyone that they are indeed an “artist”, that the “quality” of their creative output depended more on the meaningful stories driving it than their technical ability to cast those stories into traditional artistic modes. My favourite theology sees God’s act of creation not as the laying down of immovable strictures but as the invitation to us to continue that act of creation through our own creative acts. And so I will not attempt to argue in a purely disinterested way that human beings are essentially creative. For one thing, to say that creativity is both necessary and sufficient for human personhood runs into a variety of philosophical problems. Some particular human beings might not evince much of what we judge to be creativity, after all. But it does seem evident that much of what we appreciate about the creative artifacts we recognize as such is the human meaning invested in them. Whether the artifact is a painting, a song, or a building, when we hear the human story that launched a particular creative process on its way, or indeed the story of the creative process itself (with all its accompanying challenges and accidents), we find a connection of meaning with the creator, via their artifact, that transcends the artifact’s particular physical or aesthetic form. Our aesthetic relationship with the products of human creativity therefore goes one step further than our relationship with, e.g., the beauty of the natural world. And so I take it for granted that human personhood is a necessary precondition for this heightened kind of aesthetic experience consisting in the connection of meaning established between the creator and the ones experiencing their creative artifact.\nWhat kind of meaning lies behind a piece of AI-generated artwork? If we leave aside, as I have been doing, the possibility that AI systems are actually conscious agents, then it is hard to see how there is anything approaching “meaning” in their outputs. A connection of meaning can exist between human beings in a relatively transparent way given our shared evolutionary and historical trajectory, i.e., the fact that we can inhabit each others’ lived experiences to a significant degree. When a neural network produces a poem about the frustration of never-ending spring rains in Vancouver (something I would very much like to do at this moment), the poem does not result from any subjective experience of the rains in question, however much the AI feeds upon the tokens of people who have had those experiences. It is therefore a refracted representation of a set of tokens which were originally causally and meaningfully connected to spring rains, but that’s it. Nothing’s going on “inside” the AI which we might care about in the way we care about the backstory of a human creator.\nIf this is a true insight, then maybe we can propose a provisional “law of process aesthetics”, defined for now without rigour: creative artifacts are aesthetically valuable in proportion to the amount of human intention, effort, care, and meaning involved in their production, and to the extent these factors are known by the beholder. The two concerns about AI I discussed above are thus particularly concerning, because when conjoined they do away entirely with the important aesthetic relation of meaningfulness. When I identify what is most essential about personhood with qualities that can be said to belong to AI systems, then I forfeit an ability to relate on the plane of shared human experience outside those “rational” qualities. And when I settle for an AI-generated prelude to my novella, I miss the opportunity to implant a discoverable and relatable meaning in my work (or at least meaning that flows from me as a person instead of from the global amalgam of personal artifacts that constitutes the training data for an LLM).\nOne interesting corollary of the proposed “law” is that certain types of AI-assisted projects might be considered to be aesthetically valuable indeed. Imagine a scenario where a talented painter used something like ChatGPT to put pixels of specific colours in specific locations upon a canvas, as if they were talking to their paintbrush instead of manipulating it directly. A beautiful painting produced this way would exhibit a high degree of human intention, effort, care, and meaning, with potentially multiple layers of meaning given the choice to use a suboptimal tool in the production of the painting (or maybe the only available tool, if the artist did not have the use of their hands). In this case, the use of AI does not appear to diminish at all the human creativity and meaning involved, and I would not want to argue otherwise myself.\nOn the other hand, an AI painting generated by the prompt “Draw me a beautiful lake in the country in the style of Cezanne” would not count as aesthetically very valuable or meaningful on this scheme, regardless of the sheer visual beauty of the artifact. I take this to be a relatively uncontroversial outcome as well.\nLiving in an AI-assisted future It’s time to descend from abstract and maybe tendentious thinking about aesthetics and human creativity and come back to the real world. Even if a number of people are swayed by arguments like the ones I’ve been making, the fact is that AI assistance is too powerful a promise for most people to refuse. Particularly in cases where the traditional creative process doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel all that fulfilling (like writing a paper for a class you don\u0026rsquo;t much care about), it might not seem that the cost of adopting AI is very high. To be honest, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what to do about such cases, other than to make the personal and societal arguments from a place of vigorous and impassioned celebration of human creativity (i.e., to engage in “ deictic discourse”), and hope they resonate at some level as a kind of virtue ethic. (I, for one, am not currently tempted to use an AI assistant even in mundane writing tasks, for all the reasons above, particularly because I want the things that are attached to my name to be authentic processions of me, not my intent filtered through an afterimage of all the words ever uploaded to the web. I leave open, of course, the possibility that use cases might arise for which my personal calculus changes!)\nOne of my hopes in all of this is a possible backlash to the looming flood of AI-created artifacts. When artifacts of sufficient quality are so easily produced, it may be that we start to value not so much the \u0026ldquo;quality\u0026rdquo; per se of the art but the human elements that make art meaningful and relatable, and the human practice and skill that we honour in the artifact. Until AI agents have lived experiences that approximate our own, the story behind a piece of AI-generated art is just not going to be as meaningful. I wonder if we will start to gravitate towards art that has an \u0026ldquo;AI-free\u0026rdquo; label because we know we are going to encounter something more \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo;, the way a certain segment of the population prefers \u0026ldquo;hormone-free\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;additive-free\u0026rdquo; organic foods. In other words, we might add a new dimension to the concept of provenance of creative artifacts, and not just for high art but for everyday \u0026ldquo;knowledge worker\u0026rdquo; output as well. Even if this happens, I\u0026rsquo;m concerned that economic pressures will tend to make higher-human-involved products (like organic foods, or this putative 100% AI-free art) more expensive, with the concomitant reduction in access to goods which should arguably belong to everyone. (Update: a few days after posting this article, I saw an example of this in the wild!)\nRegardless of how it shakes out economically, I do see the possibility of a natural reaction against commodified AI-generated artifacts on the horizon, which gives me hope that at least a significant minority will continue to value traditional, human-centred modes of creativity. This minority might even push more boldly into that field than we currently experience, rediscovering and moving forward older or forgotten arts that were superseded by technological means. External economic support from a patron class or a government source would no doubt be necessary to make this whole story sustainable, in the way Albert Borgmann proposes a political affirmation of traditional modes of production over against the commoditizing force of technology.\nI think the basic questions we all need to ask are, (1) “What makes human life meaningful and valuable?” And (2) \u0026ldquo;What does a use of AI look like which fully respects those aspects of human life?\u0026rdquo; Answering the first question will be difficult because it has always been difficult. Answering the second question will involve confronting some of the unintended side effects of AI use that might ultimately be detrimental for faculties that we prize highly in ourselves, like our creativity. And maybe this is one good outcome of the rise of AI: it might compel us to take the first question more seriously than we have so far!\nRight now, sitting as we are in the full upswing of the AI hype cycle, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to focus on the promises, the benefits, and the technical legerdemain enacted for our amazement. But we should not lose sight of the fact that technology, if it is to be good, must always be subjugated to, and limited by, higher human values. Too often technological development becomes its own end (the \u0026ldquo;efficiency\u0026rdquo; fetish, per Ellul). We already see this with AI, where the AI \u0026ldquo;arms race\u0026rdquo; is being intentionally escalated by major companies. Hubris is dangerous enough, but when coupled with wilful myopia, it is a recipe for catastrophe. I want us to take a deep breath and think a little bit about what we really value in our lives, our selves, our communities, and whether the catapulting of AI into all of these areas is really going to make them better. I fully expect that, in a number of ways and dimensions, the answer will be \u0026ldquo;yes\u0026rdquo;! And in some areas I expect that it will be \u0026ldquo;no\u0026rdquo;. My hope, whatever we decide, is that we come to these answers after a process of settled discernment, not simply as a result of the conveyor-belt adoption of whatever the tech magnates have decided will make our lives easier, or their pockets heavier. (One also gets the sneaking suspicion that capitalist money-grabbing is not even the primary motivation in the frenzied development of AI. A decidedly religious zeal accompanies the pronouncements of the field’s top stars, and the hope with which their flocks look to “AGI” or “The Singularity” to solve all our problems makes old-fashioned Fundamentalism look almost thoughtful by comparison).\nA Tolkien-inspired technology virtue ethic As a huge Sci-Fi/Fantasy nerd, I can’t conclude without attempting some reference to an epic story, in this case, The Lord of the Rings. I was struck recently by something I noticed about the narrative in those novels which is instructive for our purposes. It’s been frequently observed that Sauron’s One Ring stands for the kind of power which is so overwhelming, and so tied to Sauron’s nature, that it can only corrupt. (Some have indeed wondered if it is a cipher for modern technology.) Anyone that comes into contact with the Ring is ultimately overcome by its power and turns to evil. The truly “good” characters in the narrative are those who reject the offer of the Ring entirely (Gandalf, Galadriel, or Faramir–the book version of him–for example, in contrast to Boromir or even Frodo, who ultimately succumbs). So far, this could all be cast as a “substantivist” critique of modern technology: technology, like the Ring, has its own internal “force” that ultimately determines the outcome, regardless of the intentions of the mortal wielder. We don’t generally believe this hard-line take on technology, which appears to have a nature much more complex than either a simple instrumentalist or substantivist view can account for.\nInterestingly, there’s a good deal more nuance implicit in the narrative world, which I only just recognized: Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond are all ring wielders themselves, bearing the three Elvish rings forged around the same time as the One Ring. Galadriel may have said “no” to the tempting possibilities of the One Ring, but she didn’t say “no” to rings of power in general, and was happy to make use of Nenya (her ring) for certain, more constrained, purposes (such as the sustaining of Lothlórien and its people). I think we have here a more realistic philosophy of technology, more or less dependent on a kind of virtue ethic, that can be useful for us in the current situation. Some technology may have the morally overwhelming force of the One Ring, and to such technologies the appropriate response is humility, the recognition that I, at least, will not be able to wield such power responsibly without dire consequence. But other technologies might be suitable for me.\nWhich technologies are which depend on a variety of factors, not least my own character. (Boromir, for example, would probably not have been trustworthy to wield one of the Elvish rings, either. And we are certainly led to assume that Saruman is not worthy of whatever ring it is that he apparently acquired along the way.) We can extrapolate this point to the level of society as well. Which technologies we allow to run free in our society depends jointly on the nature of the technologies and on the level of maturity we generally exhibit in society in relation to those technologies. If we want to take advantage of higher-powered and more consequential technologies, then perhaps we must first focus on asking which practices will generate the kind of character, at the level of both individual and society, that can safely engage with those technologies. We already encode this way of treating technology to a certain degree legally, for example with minimum drinking ages or driving tests. Until we can figure out the appropriate methods for developing and confirming character vis a vis other consequential technologies—and maybe forever in the case of some technologies—we are best off emulating Galadriel, who was content to allow her own diminishment rather than become something more powerful, yes, but ultimately less good.\n(Many thanks to Matt Civico , Justin Smith , Adam Graber , and Nick Bott , who reviewed drafts of this essay and provided helpful feedback, insights, examples, and in some cases, copyediting! All views and errors are my own, etc…, etc…)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2023/04/the-consequences-of-ai-for-human-personhood-and-creativity/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the past, as I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about the nature of modern technology and its impact on human life, I\u0026rsquo;ve generally felt one step ahead of the technological developments under consideration. The philosophical tools at our disposal to analyze and criticize technology felt effective, if only in principle. Again in principle, it seemed that if enough people just took the time to think and reflect critically about technology, we might have a chance to encourage a more humane trajectory for it. But with the recent and rapid onset (onslaught?) of new AI technologies and platforms (\u003ca href=\"https://chat.openai.com/\"\u003eChatGPT\u003c/a\u003e and other large language models—\u0026ldquo;LLMs\u0026rdquo;—foremost among them), that feeling of theoretical manageability has evaporated. It was no doubt a naïve feeling to begin with, and is now replaced by a sense of being adrift, at sea, with no sight of land amidst the churning waters of technological change.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The consequences of AI for human personhood and creativity"},{"content":" Today I received my first set of tattoos.1 It took me many years to come up with something that I felt was meaningful enough to make a permanent part of my external appearance. Ultimately, I was able to develop a short poem in Koine Greek that hit the mark for me. What follows is a sort of theological meditation on the text and the meaning of these tattoos.\nThe text in Greek:2\nἐν ἀρχῇ ὁ λόγος ἐν τέλει ὁ χορός And translated into English:\nIn the beginning [was] the Word In the end [will be] the Chorus John the Theologian makes an astonishing claim in the first sentence of his Gospel about the primacy of the ontology of the \u0026ldquo;Word\u0026rdquo; (including in its semantic constellation categories like Relation, Story, or Reason): it is coeval with God, in fact it is coextensive with God. Even more astonishing, several sentences later, he makes the claim that this primal category of existence became human flesh\u0026mdash;became one of us, in all the important ways that make you you and me me.\nThe prophet Isaiah declares that the Word of God shall not return void, and trinitarian theology sees this fact as part of the very fabric of reality: the Word proceeds from the Father (as the Son) so as to save, collect, and preserve all of Creation, returning it to its Creator in a joyful reunion. A word that is spoken into nothingness is of no value, for soliloquy is the domain of solipsism. A word that is spoken to a featureless surface and bounces back as a mere echo is similarly void, however resounding. But a Word that is caught by its hearers, that effects change, and that elicits a conversation in response\u0026mdash;that is the Word which does not return void.\nAnd so, in almost syllogistic (literally, \u0026ldquo;together-with-the-word\u0026rdquo;) fashion, we realize that the point of the Word is to produce many other words in response. The point of the Son is to bring all of Creation into the relation of restored childhood with the Father. The point of the first Word spoken in the darkness is to create the the light necessary for life. And the point of the Word spoken into human flesh is to enable all flesh to speak to God. But do we imagine a cacophony of voices shouting unintelligibly? No! The proper mode of diverse oral unity is not speaking (which can ultimately only mean speaking over one another) but singing, together. Only in singing are words from multiple parties joined temporally in mutual respect and harmony. They blend, creating something new and better without loss of person or agency. Therefore, the proper auditory image is not the atonal conversation of a debate, but rather antiphony, call-and-response, the bid of the lover and the reply of the beloved. First the Word, then the Chorus. When the Chorus joins the Word, the distinctions between the two matter less than they did before. When humankind joins the Son as children of God, the Son becomes \u0026ldquo;merely\u0026rdquo; the eldest brother, the first-born of a new kind of creature. The Word lassos and lifts; it does not return void. It grants existence without being made less itself. The relationship between God and Creation is anything but zero-sum.\nThe existence of God as Word shows us God as yearning, more than anything else, to be joined in song by other words, by we who have heard the first Word and who have chosen to sing in reply through the patterning of our lives. Each voice that answers the Word in song has its own character, its own timbre, its own language, and these differences are not erased when joined in the mighty chorus with others; rather, they meld into something impossible, individual yet corporate, the distinction between sum and parts having become a category error. The ineffable movement and infinite song of Dante\u0026rsquo;s comic apex is captured in the χορός, because this word in Greek is the root not only of \u0026ldquo;chorus\u0026rdquo; but of \u0026ldquo;choreography\u0026rdquo;. When we respond to the Word we do not do so with verbal statements, but with our singing voices and our moving bodies, the inscribers upon physical reality of the Word\u0026rsquo;s work upon our hearts.\nThe fact that \u0026ldquo;Word\u0026rdquo; is the primary ontological category, not just in the sense of time but also in the sense of preeminence, implies that \u0026ldquo;Chorus\u0026rdquo; (known variously as theosis, the beatific vision, and so on) is the primary teleological category, not just in the sense of time but also in the sense of purpose. The Word that spoke the universe into being also apparently spoke Aramaic, through trachea and tongue, creating pressure waves of sound, which reverberated eventually, with many twists and turns, into my ears, transformed but retaining their essence. The choice that remained for me was merely whether to join the Chorus or to remain silent. And in a way it was never really a choice, because whatever else I am, I am a musician. I will always choose the song, the \u0026ldquo;yes\u0026rdquo;, over the silence of the void.\nNotes The tattoo was inked by Jessica Puska; very happy with her work! Many thanks to Seumas Macdonald who helped to ensure the Greek was sensible and correct. ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2022/11/a-theological-reflection-on-my-first-tattoos/","summary":"\u003cdiv class=\"gallery gallery-cols-2\"\u003e\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2022/11/IMG%5F2656.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\u003cfigure\u003e\n    \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2022/11/IMG%5F2658.jpg\"/\u003e \n\u003c/figure\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eToday I received my first set of tattoos.\u003ca href=\"#notes\"\u003e1\u003c/a\u003e It took me many years to come up with something that I felt was meaningful enough to make a permanent part of my external appearance. Ultimately, I was able to develop a short poem in Koine Greek that hit the mark for me. What follows is a sort of theological meditation on the text and the meaning of these tattoos.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe text in Greek:\u003ca href=\"#notes\"\u003e2\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A theological reflection on my first tattoos"},{"content":"Intro and Disclaimers Most of my writing energies these days go to keeping Appium Pro current, so it may surprise some of my Internet people to know that I have a personal blog, where I have (with decreasing frequency) mused in long or short form on a number of topics, most recently evaluating technology from a critical philosophical perspective. Of probably even greater surprise to many would be the fact that I have a strong interest, not just in the philosophy of technology, but in the theology of technology (and indeed, theology as it relates to technology).\nPersonally, I grew up in and remain in the Christian tradition, though over the years my faith has become something very unlike what often goes under the adjective “Christian” in our world today (especially in the United States). If I thought you had the patience, I would heap paragraphs on top of one another critiquing contemporary “Christianity\u0026quot; from top to bottom. As is readily visible to anyone with the eyes to see, mostly what people mean by “Christian”, and uphold as Christians, is a set of beliefs and practices at best orthogonal to, and at worst diametrically opposed to, the teachings and actions of Jesus. But that is not what this post is about, so I will have to (uncomfortably) settle for this brief disclaimer.\nThis post is about the SARS-COV-2 virus, and more specifically how it is changing our culture and our theology as it rampages in pandemic form around the world. This post is also about the phenomenon of increasing virtualization of everything, even the practice of “church”. And finally, this post is about embodiment, which is under attack at this moment in history, and not only in the direct and obvious form of COVID-19. This post is primarily addressed to people who would themselves care about what church is (or is supposed to be), but others of you might find the reflections interesting as well.\nVR Church To get into this discussion, let’s talk about VR church. A year and a half ago, CNN aired a video on the new phenomenon of VR church (take the time to watch it now if you didn’t catch it earlier). The video description asks the question, \u0026ldquo;What if you didn\u0026rsquo;t have to leave your house to go to church, and all that you needed was a computer and an internet connection?” There are multiple kinds of digital church envisioned here, from the equivalent of huge video calls, to the extreme of church meetings taking place purely via the interaction of VR avatars. The basic tone of the video is: of course church could be digital and/or virtual, just like everything else! Why wouldn’t it?\nThe thesis I want to promote here is contrary to that position, and quite simple: VR church is not church. To be more helpful, I can rephrase in more specific language: According to the vision for humanity, and for the trajectory of humanity’s relationship with God, found in the best and most careful exegeses of the Judeo-Christian writings, the idea of a purely “virtual” or “digital” church is a contradiction in terms, because it loses sight of the intense biblical focus on the value of ordinary, embodied human existence.\nThere’s a lot to unpack here, and a lot for people to disagree with. To argue for the essential opposition of “church” and “virtual” that I’m proposing, we need to first make sure we understand VR, and then we need to make sure we understand Christianity’s vision for church and indeed for humanity in general.\nThe Nature and Purpose of VR What is VR? As we all already know, it involves covering our sense perceptors as completely as possible with digital inputs, so that we are transported to a completely digitized reality. Today, this means mostly the covering of our eyes and ears, but in the future it will mean the wearing of special suits for tactile feedback, and potentially olfactory feedback as well. Why would anyone engage in this kind of apparently odd behavior? Proponents of VR point to any number of uses of the technology, but as far as we can tell, the primary uses today are in the realm of entertainment: gaming (first and foremost), and passive consumption of immersive content (as always with technology, pioneered by the porn industry). Other more mundane uses include team meetings, group chats, exploring houses and buildings before they are complete, “trying on” new furniture, immersive virtual shopping experiences, or virtual tourism. In the future, it is promised that VR will unlock new kinds of educational experiences, and also provide high-fidelity training for workers of all kinds.\nResearchers and technologists are also excited about the prospects of VR for allowing humans to inhabit other kinds of mental states than the ones we normally do. We might, for example, use VR to teach empathy with other people’s experiences. Somebody without the use of certain limbs might regain the experience of using them through a VR interface. We might even put a person in place of an insect, and explore a range of psychological possibilities for the human brain that we have not been able to fathom yet.\nOne basic and obvious fact about VR that goes unmentioned is that people use VR because they think it will provide something better than “real reality” (which I will denote as RR). Either a more intense gaming experience, a more immersive media consumption experience, a shortcut for the imagination when trying to pick a color for a room, or just an escape from a dull or anxious everyday life. I’m focusing on the “entertainment” uses of VR, because these are (and always will be) the most prevalent. The use of VR, then, implies either the dissatisfaction with RR or the hope to find something better than RR, if only for a period of time. This is not so different, someone might argue, from how we currently use movies and TV shows, or indeed books. We turn to them to provide a different sort of experience for our minds, often in an intentional effort to escape our prior experience, whether out of boredom or some other motive.\nIndeed, we can place VR on one end of a spectrum with a number of other developments in human history, with something like the oral tradition of epic poetry on the other end. The question for us as people wishing to analyze VR from a cultural, philosophical, or ethical perspective, becomes: what are the distinctives of VR, and do these imply a different analysis than the kind we would give about books? On the face of it, VR is certainly distinct from reading a novel. The whole point of VR is to provide complete immersion, overwhelming the senses in order to convince the user that what they are seeing is “real” (even if that “realness” is cached out in terms of an aesthetic quite different from RR, e.g., the pixelated and blocky aesthetic of Minecraft). The point of a novel is to meet the reader halfway—the author provides a sort of schema for understanding a set of descriptions, and the reader constructs an imagined experience with those pieces. The reader of a novel is still doing her own “work” to cognitively build the reality she then inhabits, whereas in VR, the reality comes of its own accord (however malleable that reality is via the user’s manipulation of it).\nMovies would occupy an intermediate space between novels and VR experiences, because the filmmaker does the work of crafting a single reality for all viewers to experience, and yet each viewer sees the bounds of the screen, and knows that what is happening is that a story is being told, rather than a reality being constructed for their participation. This is the other distinctive of VR—the user actually inhabits the entertainment world in a way that the reader of a book or a viewer of a movie does not. This habitation of the virtual world brings with it a whole new set of psychological and emotional investments. Users of VR are described as merging with their avatars in a way completely unlike our experience of watching a character on a screen. Users of VR have also reported a sense of loss or dissatisfaction or disorientation with RR, upon returning from their VR excursions. Something real in our identity is given over to the VR world, as indeed can happen with the imagined worlds of novels or movies, but in a way which is much stronger and unconscious in the VR case.\nCrucially, VR experiences involve the phenomenon of disembodiment in a much more significant way than other forms of media. This is quite the point of VR—to encourage a person to forget the reality experienced by their body and to invest in the reality delivered by the device. The fact that usually the user inhabits some point of view or a personal character in a VR experience might convince us to use the neologism otherbodiment instead, but the end result is the same—the dissociation of one’s mind and experience of reality from one’s concrete physical situation.\nUsers of VR might argue that I\u0026rsquo;m wrong about VR being disembodied, at least relatively speaking. They might point to the variety of VR games that crucially involve the use of body movements for playing the game. It\u0026rsquo;s true that compared with sitting at a desk and using a keyboard and mouse, VR games can be more kinetic (and I think this considered on its own is a good thing). However, the fact that one\u0026rsquo;s body is involved does not amount to \u0026ldquo;embodiment\u0026rdquo;. First of all, the user\u0026rsquo;s body in this case is separate from the game \u0026ldquo;body\u0026rdquo;, and used merely as a sort of controller. Secondly, the motions used for controlling VR games are (at least to this point) merely coarse-grained pantomimes or symbolic representations of real bodily action (for example, the digital version of nocking an arrow and loosing it has to be quite a bit more generic than the real thing). Finally, the use of one\u0026rsquo;s body to drive VR experiences is probably ultimately a hindrance to the delivery of the most immersive content, and will ultimately give way to neurological control according to the nature of the Device Paradigm.\nWe could say a lot more about VR, and we are almost in a position to give an ethical and social analysis of it on its own terms. But the point of this essay is to explore the phenomenon of VR church, so it’s time we took a look at the other side of that question—the “church” side.\nThe Vision of Christianity In this essay, there is no way to give the appropriate qualifications on the meaning of the term “Christianity.” There is in actual practice of course not just one thing to which that term refers. Historically, the thousands of years of the religion’s development has seen many and sometimes conflicting variations. And yet, I would argue that we can indeed trace one thread from the Mosaic Yahwism of the authors of the Pentateuch through the prophetic ministry of Jesus of Nazareth to the current practice and tradition of at least some of modern Christianity. It is this thread, which has almost always been misunderstood in various ways, or pulled in erroneous and contradictory directions, which I mean by “Christianity.” It is this thread which I am attempting to speak on behalf of (with the appropriate amount of humility) in this essay.\nWhat does this kind of Christianity propose is true about the world? Let me highlight the points which I take to be relevant for the current discussion in bulleted fashion here:\nReality is good, not something to escape. God created a good (yet still “in-progress\u0026rdquo;) world, and nothing humans can do could made it a “bad” world in its essence (though the evidence is clear enough in the Bible and in our present experience that we can do an awful lot to make it worse—see the next point).\nPain and evil are real, and real problems, and the appropriate response to their existence is to work faithfully against them with the ultimate awareness that God will not suffer them forever. We should neither fatalistically succumb to the existence of evil, nor attempt to escape and transcend it in an ultimate denial.\nThe sphere of our existence is resolutely physical. We are embodied beings, living in a physical world with other embodied beings. Nothing in the Bible suggests that some kind of escape from the physical is desirable or appropriate (that idea is of Gnostic or Neoplatonic origin, and it has unfortunately been attractive to people for a very long time). The focus for ethics and even theology in the Bible is always brought back to the well-being of the earth’s creatures, considered at least physically (not denying however that the ultimate source of physical goodness is the “spiritual” goodness of appropriate relation to God).\nHumanity is basically personal, relational, and communal. We are responsible for one another as well as for the earth in general. To attempt to escape a painful or evil situation while leaving others in it would be immoral. Because humans are embodied, our ethical responsibility is first and foremost in the sphere of physical needs and well-being, all the while acknowledging the intrinsic relationship between the physical and spiritual (they do not vary freely with respect to one another).\nHuman beings, and indeed all the earth’s creatures, are dependent. We are not gods ourselves, though God does want us to grow in relationship with him to the extent that we eventually become something quite different than we are today. The way to grow is by trusting in the good gifts of God despite circumstances, and indeed by suffering even death in the service of God’s creatures while remaining in that posture of trust.\nCreated reality is “sticky”, and “hard”—we are to work with it, and will inevitably experience its resistance. If we fall on the ground, we will get injured. This is a part of living in an ultimately good and ordered creation, and not a result of a moral or metaphysical “Fall”. We cannot reshape reality as we see fit just by a word—that power is clearly on the side of God and not of his creatures. We are to shape reality, but only by working with the tools available within the created world (and indeed by developing new tools to help us better work with reality).\nThis might not sound like the Christianity you grew up in or around. It certainly would have sounded foreign to my Bible-belt-dwelling teenage self! But it is nonetheless the story the Bible paints when it is read carefully and well. Crucially, the climax of this story involves what we call the Incarnation, which is God’s act of becoming a human being. If anything could be the nail in the coffin of the Gnostic heresy of Docetism, it would be this doctrine that the supreme spiritual being chose to become a physical, flesh-and-blood human being, with all the physical and intellectual limits that implies. According to Christianity, God’s purposes never included rescuing people from physical reality, but was and is to work with human beings in physical reality, encouraging humans and all the rest of Creation to become more and more like him (i.e., creative, free, and loving).\nChristianity vs VR Now that we’ve looked at VR, and looked at what I mean by “Christianity”, we can consider the phenomenon of “VR Church” more directly. It’s true that we haven’t discussed ecclesiology (i.e., we haven’t defined “church”), but even if we take “church” to just mean something like “a group of people living out the vision of Christianity together,” it’s clear that “VR Church” is a contradiction in terms.\nFirst of all, VR experiences are completely disembodied (or otherbodied), which undercuts the Christian emphasis on embodiment and on physical reality being the zone within which God has chosen to relate to us. What’s so bad about disembodiment? In general, I see it as having a variety of negative consequences. I’ll list a few:\nDisembodiment can discourage care of the physical world and its creatures—if we don’t inhabit that world, why would we maintain it?\nDisembodiment can distort human relationships. On one hand, the ability to present oneself in any form one chooses is a freeing experience. On the other hand, whenever I encounter someone so presented, I am not actually interacting with them. It becomes that much easier to engage in the process (not limited to VR, certainly) of mutual projection—I project onto the other person what I want them to be, and vice versa. The difference with VR is that mutual projection can continue forever—there is no rubber to meet any proverbial road in showing me who my interlocutor really is.\nDisembodiment goes hand in hand with distemporality. Space and time are essential features of our physical experience, and time is a key ingredient in most physical and psychological processes. VR experiences, like many other digital experiences, contribute to a reliance on instant gratification, which is at odds with the way RR works. In general disembodiment leads to a greater dissatisfaction with anything difficult or unpleasant, because there is no intrinsic need for difficulty in an entirely constructed world.\nIn fact, VR opens up a kind of new Platonic Gnosticism, giving us the power to finally be our own gods, at the cost of our universe(s) becoming totally solipsistic. Still, the ability to forge our self image with complete arbitrariness, and to experience whatever we will, whenever we will it, is intoxicating. The better the VR experience, and the more compelling our own existence in it, the more dissatisfied we will become with RR, leading to a vicious cycle of disembodiment.\nUltimately, VR is a tool, like many other technological devices, designed to help us avoid pain and death—even if the pain to be avoided is the minor pain of a daily inconvenience. The real danger of VR, from a Christian perspective, is that the price for doing so is buying into a reality that disregards what Craig Gay (in his book on modern technology) calls “ordinary embodied human existence”. This kind of existence might not hold much appeal for many people, but for the Christian, it is the kind of existence which has been stamped with the ultimate seal of value by the Incarnation. And it’s not hard to see why! On the Christian view, we are not meant to be gods (at least not without first going through a process of maturation into the character of God). Physical reality, with all its pains, toils, and rough edges, keeps us grounded in trust and dependence along the journey towards that maturity. Physical reality involving other people reminds us of our intrinsic social and ethical dimensions—we aren’t meant to live solipsistically, and sometimes we need the messiness of other people to help us see that.\nSo, should churches adopt VR services to reach a broader audience and increase the convenience of all involved? No, I don’t think so. The point of church is not to reach a broad audience, as if the Gospel of Jesus Christ were a marketing campaign (and obviously some people treat it just like that). Nor is convenience a spiritual virtue. Instead, churches should remember that Jesus became the first true human being so that we too could be truly human beings in a truly physical world, not to escape to a disembodied Heaven when we die. Churches should take seriously the parable of the Good Samaritan and look to the physical well-being of their neighbors, inside and outside the flock. And finally, churches should be critically aware of all the ways disembodiment can sneak in. VR services are just one end of a spectrum—what about fully remote video services? Do these differ substantially in analysis from what I argued about VR? Ultimately, I would argue they don\u0026rsquo;t. And so it is interesting to see that, despite the “fringe” nature of VR services, fully remote online services are exploding in number across the world as we speak, due to the social distancing recommendations attached to the COVID-19 pandemic.\nCOVID-19 The current pandemic is unique (in my experience at least) in moving almost all social interaction online. This probably couldn’t have happened even 10 years ago, but it is now possible to use video conferencing tools successfully for a lot of social interaction. There are two questions I want to consider in this connection: first, should churches run online services, given everything we said about “VR Church”? And second, more generally, what is an appropriate Christian response to the pandemic, based on my understanding of Christianity?\nMy take on the first question is that remote online church services are a net negative, or maybe instead that they reveal a negative truth about what church has already been. The fact that we could, within the space of several weeks, have fully-functioning church services online without intense disruption of people’s faith lives, signals to me that most churches have already become virtual, even while meeting in their sanctuaries every Sunday. It’s not hard to believe, especially for megachurches, that actual “ordinary embodied human existence” is not a central feature of church life. Sitting as a more or less faceless member of a huge audience watching a pastor speak, or a worship leader play music on a stage, one is not actively engaging one’s ordinary embodied existence in the direction of spiritual maturity!\nLet me clear about the present situation: I\u0026rsquo;m not saying that video chats with your parishioners, friends, or family during a shelter-in-place order is a bad thing. I\u0026rsquo;m grateful for the technology that lets us connect in high-bandwidth ways that keep the wheels of society from grinding completely to a halt, and I\u0026rsquo;m not suggesting that we live as Luddite hermits merely because we\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to be physically present with our friends and neighbors (although, pretty much everybody in our overly connected society would probably benefit from some screen-free solitude).\nMy real problem here is that, as I look around, I don’t actually see that many churches even nominally living out the vision of Christianity I framed above. As a result, for the average church, a move online is probably not going to make much of a difference to the experience of their average member. Moving everything online might, however, further sanction the kind of disembodiment I find so dangerous about VR, contributing to a naive and problematic openness to VR on the part of Christians and the wider culture. Rather than facilitating this transition, I think churches should be actively resisting it!\nSo, should churches continue to meet in person, in the midst of a pandemic? No, of course not. Christians should listen to scientists and doctors when they say that social distancing is the best way to care for the especially vulnerable in our society. Caring for the especially vulnerable is practically the charter of Christianity, so it would be a horrible irony if Christians valued some abstract concept of embodiment over the concrete well-being of their neighbors! Christians should be eagerly seeking advice on how best to care for others in society, and if that means staying at home and not going to church—so be it!\nBut of course, there are options besides just canceling church on one hand and doing a purely remote online version of a church’s normal service on the other, and this brings us into my take on the second question (about how Christians should respond to the pandemic generally). In addition to paying attention to the recommendations of trustworthy doctors and scientists, Christians should be creative in finding ways to help others in what is currently a mounting crisis not just of health but of the economy. For someone in the church’s neighboring community who has just lost a job, what they need is probably not an online church service, but cash to get them through the coming rough season. Why wouldn’t churches take their online marketing budgets and create a fund for those in need in their communities? Transferring money can be done without the risk of infection!\nOr, what if churches acknowledged the fundamentally consumption-oriented model of online services, and decided to scrap the whole thing? Churches could connect smaller groups of members, who could meet in video chats where at least everyone has the sense of participating. Or, at an extreme, what if churches sold their big and expensive buildings and gave the profits to those in need, pledging to instead spin up a house-church model after the pandemic subsides? There are lots of things that churches could do, in other words, that don’t sacrifice ordinary embodied human existence even as we all abide by the social distancing policies that temporarily restrict our embodied existence in certain ways. In my awareness, however, churches in general have not been asking creative questions about what they could do along these lines, and instead have been focused mostly on asking how they can continue to do the same thing they did before, but online.\nIn terms of the individual Christian’s response to the pandemic, it is clear from Scripture that at the very least we should not be panic-buying and hoarding toilet paper. Instead, we trust that the God of the widow of Zarephath will provide for our needs in such a way that we can allow our neighbors their fair share—or more—of toilet paper as well. Trust is the key posture. For the Christian, there is no guarantee of happiness or health in life, or even of the continuation of life itself. A lot of things can happen in this world, and even some of the things that aren’t morally bad about the world (e.g., viruses) can kill us. The Christian merely has the confidence that the same God that made the world (and allowed for the evolution of viruses) has the power to restore life, and moreover knows each of us by name. And in the meantime, we should do all we can to prevent the kinds of bad things humans are responsible for (like poor pandemic preparedness, or the hiding of information, or the injustice in the distribution of tests and medicine, or taking advantage of people’s rights in a crisis, etc…). The virus on its own is one thing, but compounded by all kinds of human evil and thoughtlessness, it becomes something else entirely!\nConclusion This has been a long essay indeed, so allow me to summarize what I’ve tried to communicate here: according to the kind of Christianity I take to be most authentically Christian, churches should think twice before virtualizing their operations. In fact, they should already be thinking twice about what on earth (pun!) they are doing. Churches should recover a theological focus on the value of ordinary embodied human existence to such an extent that the very idea of “VR Church” should appear to be a contradiction in terms, and they should moreover be asking what it means to value the ordinary embodied human existence of their neighbors.\nIn the current COVID-19 health crisis, this very regard for the embodied human existence of our neighbors implies that Christians should refrain from the kinds of embodied gatherings that could bring unintentional infection and harm to the vulnerable. This abstinence should be regarded as unfortunate and temporary, not as merely a convenient catalyst for moving to purely online delivery of church services or a slide into the normalization of a more “virtual\u0026quot; humanity. Finally, Christians everywhere should be praying and working for the elimination of the virus, and more importantly, the elimination of any human folly or evil that makes the impact of the virus worse than what it needs to be on its own.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2020/03/covid-19-vr-church-and-ordinary-embodied-human-existence/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"intro-and-disclaimers\"\u003eIntro and Disclaimers\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost of my writing energies these days go to keeping \u003ca href=\"https://appiumpro.com/\"\u003eAppium Pro\u003c/a\u003e current, so it may surprise some of my Internet people to know that I have a personal blog, where I have (with decreasing frequency) mused in long or short form on a number of topics, most recently evaluating technology from a critical philosophical perspective. Of probably even greater surprise to many would be the fact that I have a strong interest, not just in the \u003cem\u003ephilosophy\u003c/em\u003e of technology, but in the \u003cem\u003etheology\u003c/em\u003e of technology (and indeed, theology as it relates to technology).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"COVID-19, VR Church, and Ordinary Embodied Human Existence"},{"content":"Author\u0026rsquo;s Note: This is the last of a 4-part series in which I interview Albert Borgmann, an eminent philosopher of technology. The interview has been transcribed and published here with minimal editing. I recommend starting with Part 1 to understand the greater context!\nOn-demand apps and the sharing economy JL: We\u0026rsquo;ve already talked about the Internet of Things, so I think I\u0026rsquo;ll skip that question. There\u0026rsquo;s this other hot area in technology, which is the rise of on-demand goods and services applications where anything that we want, whether a good or a service, is wrapped up into an app designed to get us that thing as instantly and reliably as possible. You might have heard of Instacart or Uber or all these apps which are replacing the traditional mechanisms for procuring things, in a way which makes them more available. It\u0026rsquo;s the Device Paradigm. But to me it\u0026rsquo;s interesting that it\u0026rsquo;s being splintered into each good or commodity having its own app or service. It\u0026rsquo;s this kind of very clear picture of the fragmentation that you were talking about in your book. People love these apps; people whose lives are busy, for whom going grocery shopping is a chore that takes them away from quality time with their family or the little time that they have after work, or an app that can get a maid to your house in 10 minutes to clean and you never have to see them and it just charges your credit card and it\u0026rsquo;s just so convenient and it frees you up. There\u0026rsquo;s this disburdenment. It\u0026rsquo;s all very Device Paradigm in essence. What would you say to somebody who is really feeling the benefit of that? How could you convince them that maybe this is taking something away, or would you?\nAB: Well again there are special cases where these things are a godsend, and so fine.\nJL: If you\u0026rsquo;re a starving person a Big Mac is a godsend.\nAB: Right. It\u0026rsquo;s an iteration of the unkept promise of technology. So it saves people time. What for? It\u0026rsquo;s Marx\u0026rsquo;s remark, you know, all these wonderful things [that come from] free time. It just never happened. Free time\u0026mdash;what for? Either to work more, or to indulge in consumption that is the antithesis of engagement and the Good Life.\nJL: So it\u0026rsquo;s hard because at any given point, disburdenment feels disburdening. But then it becomes a moving target and if you choose to work more or consume more you don\u0026rsquo;t realize that you\u0026rsquo;re putting yourself in a position where you\u0026rsquo;re going to choose more disburdenment later, rather than choose another path entirely which would have kept you from the subseqent need for that disburdenment.\nAB: And as you know, when it comes to liberty (you know people make a distinction between liberty from and liberty for)\u0026hellip; the question is never asked \u0026ldquo;disburdenment from?\u0026rdquo; Great, what for? Oops!\nJL: It\u0026rsquo;s just the assumed good that nobody questions.\nAB: So there\u0026rsquo;s always this utopian notion, we\u0026rsquo;ll read Shakespeare and play an instrument. We\u0026rsquo;ll take our kids to the park.\nJL: But instead we\u0026rsquo;ll catch up on e-mail and stick an iPad in front of our kids\u0026rsquo; faces.\nAB: Right.\nA way forward for the promise and reform of technology JL: Yeah, OK. So with this blog series that I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing on your book, I know that a small handful of people have been reading it, and hopefully more in the future. So the question is, what would you say to those of us who\u0026rsquo;ve read these articles from my blog or who\u0026rsquo;ve read your book itself who are \u0026ldquo;literate laypeople\u0026rdquo; who\u0026rsquo;ve powered through the book, struggled through, whatever. What\u0026rsquo;s next? What should we be aware of or concerned about? These possibilities of reform for technology that you mentioned, have they changed, have they expanded, have they shrunk? I sometimes look at the future and I see this polarization of this rabidly technological culture or this rabidly Luddite culture that completely disconnects. Is that what you see happening? Do you see a different way forward that\u0026rsquo;s more productive?\nAB: Well, as you know I think there always has to be a technological substructure to our lives.\nJL: You can\u0026rsquo;t get away from that anymore.\nAB: No. So I think the hopeful things, inspiring things, are where people understand this and then within the framework of technology are able to find celebration, which is easier, and then work, which is harder. So the food industry, the \u0026ldquo;foodies\u0026rdquo;, is a very hopeful thing. We had a conference here on food and there was a table with books and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t believe how many wonderful books there were. And these people use technology. They use the Internet, they use cars of course. They use sprinkler systems\u0026hellip; As you also know, the focal reality is not just traditional, it has a new kind of splendor. So the things that they grow have a sort of force in their own right as they come out of their drip systems or whatever they use to grow them. To come back to the earlier point: one title that I use in the book which I think is still appropriate is \u0026ldquo;local, labor-intensive industries\u0026rdquo;. Whatever comes under this heading. You know, Matt Crawford\u0026rsquo;s first book talks about his shop for motorbikes. Those are the wonderful things that give me hope. As I said, the crucial thing you have to look for is that they enforce coherence and assert themselves.\nJL: And be a unified front which people see as distinct from the dominant mode.\nAB: Right. And to the extent that these people are tech-savvy, that\u0026rsquo;s a big plus. Because they\u0026rsquo;re not Luddites. The terms Luddite and neo-Luddite are used loosely. So in one sense they are. But they don\u0026rsquo;t destroy things. They use them, but they are able to subordinate them to reality in some way.\nJL: It was interesting living in San Francisco, because there is a big foodie culture, a big artisan culture, and a focus on local things, but also it\u0026rsquo;s the global epicenter of the many aspects of the Device Paradigm. So I see a large tension between these two things and I think there\u0026rsquo;s a dissonance there, but a lot of people seem not to notice it in their own lives. They work for 15 hours a day at their tech startup with no grounding and no free time, but then they go and enjoy the foodie scene and order only local and organic things. So they appreciate it as a cultural phenomenon but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be inspiring them to reflect on other aspects of their lives. Is that what you\u0026rsquo;re talking about where you hope that there can be a greater force for these things, more of a voice in some way?\nAB: Yeah. I once counted how many philosophers, professional philosophers, there are in this country. Many thousands. What the people in San Francisco need is a theory, and a theory tells them how things fit together in a stable and sustainable way. That they\u0026rsquo;re not just saying, \u0026ldquo;oh yeah it\u0026rsquo;s romantic, this restaurant\u0026rdquo;. But of course that\u0026rsquo;s not the culture, or sometimes as you say they\u0026rsquo;re conflicted. Should I give up my job and teach high school? A theory should allow people to see the hope. What the good things are, and the bad things are, and how the good things fit together in an intellectually defensible and practically sustainable way. And philosophers just aren\u0026rsquo;t doing that. Philosophers are\u0026hellip; I mean, when it comes to free will, you won\u0026rsquo;t believe how many different schools there are! So it\u0026rsquo;s not just one school that deals with free will. There are all these factions and they just love fighting each other. So philosophy is really remiss in its social responsibility. I\u0026rsquo;m not saying that people shouldn\u0026rsquo;t do analytic philosophy, it\u0026rsquo;s just that not everybody should do it.\nJL: It shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be the gold standard of philosophical debate, because people need as you were saying something to help them live their lives, and philosophy\u0026rsquo;s not giving it to them.\nAB: Right.\nThe history and trajectory of the philosophy of technology JL: OK, so speaking of philosophy, the philosophy of technology: as far as I know you\u0026rsquo;ve been in the field as long as anybody. So how do you see it having evolved over time, in terms of the questions people ask? It sounds like you already answered this saying it\u0026rsquo;s gone in this analytic direction, but could you maybe give a couple exemplar questions or debates that in the last 50 years would have changed?\nAB: Well, it began in \u0026lsquo;74 or \u0026lsquo;76 with the conference at the University of Delaware. The great founders were Paul Durbin and Carl Mitcham. Those are the two. And you must be familiar with Thomas Kuhn. So it was a pre-paradigmatic period. People were saying all kinds of different things. The thing didn\u0026rsquo;t have any shape. And then out of this conference came positions. Don Ihde at SUNY Stonybrook, is one of them. Paul Durban\u0026rsquo;s sort of activist model, and Langdon Winner with a kind of political version of it. And so amazingly the people got together, and they wrote their books! And gave the thing shape. So there were distinct positions that emerged. Paradigms in the Kuhnian sense. And all of them had often an implicit but always a very strong moral and social force to them.\nJL: I can see that having met Langdon and Carl. Very strong in that sense.\nAB: And so that continued into the 80s and 90s and then the Dutch took over, and they\u0026rsquo;re spending enormous amounts of money institutionally on philosophy of technology, bless their hearts. They\u0026rsquo;re doing some good things in response to the first stage but what then sort of arose from outside of philosophy is the social studies of science. Latour. Bruno Latour. And there were some British guys who did this, and they sort of took over the field of technology and science and merged the two into technoscience, which I think was a disaster.\nJL: Well it\u0026rsquo;s not very interesting work to read from my perspective.\nAB: But it was sort of sexy.\nJL: Because you could claim it as a science? Or why was it attractive?\nAB: If you have a choice between interesting but false and true but trivial, everyone goes for interesting but false. And false sort of gets concealed for a while. So these people came up as revolutionaries, and they\u0026rsquo;re often\u0026hellip; there was always this tendency to appease the humanist and social scientists about physics. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s just a way of talking\u0026rdquo;. And that\u0026rsquo;s an easy way of dealing with physics, other than learning quantum physics, which is hard. Or just special relativity, which is fairly hard. Do I want to go back and learn calculus again to understand? No, it\u0026rsquo;s just \u0026ldquo;we talk this way, they talk that way\u0026rdquo;. So just like Derrida in the study of the literature, people felt sort of great. They were in charge and they showed those scientists! So they took over for a while and Don Ihde to some extent bought it. Do you know Don Ihde?\nJL: He wasn\u0026rsquo;t there so I didn\u0026rsquo;t meet him but his work was referenced a lot.\nAB: He sort of bought in on this. Not totally, but largely.\nJL: Is that the stuff about world-something\u0026hellip;?\nAB: Well multi-stability is his big thing, and then mediation theory and stuff like that. That I think was one way towards self-absorption. Who wants to read Latour? And some of it is just sexy terminology without anything really new. So the \u0026ldquo;agency of things\u0026rdquo;. A speed bump, for example\u0026mdash;it talks to you and says, \u0026ldquo;slow down!\u0026rdquo; Well big deal! And then the Dutch were enamored with the rigor and precision of analytic philosophy. And rigor and precision are admirable things, but the price for precision is impoverishment. The richer the phenomenon, the less it submits to rigor and precision. That\u0026rsquo;s just the way it is. Modeling is a good example. You must know that well! Models get so complex finally there\u0026rsquo;s no insight at all. You just hope the thing\u0026rsquo;s gonna work. So rigor and precision in one sense have to be left aside to make the thing work. Rigor and precision are dangerous tools because the impoverishment often creeps in unnoticed.\nJL: You\u0026rsquo;re following the rules and doing the things and coming up with these what are essentially tautological conclusions, so it feels like you\u0026rsquo;re doing work for a while.\nAB: Well, finer and finer distinctions. And again, I\u0026rsquo;m not against it. It\u0026rsquo;s just the displacement of more substantive work. So I think the philosophy of technology in one thing just failed spectacularly because in 1976 we all thought, what\u0026rsquo;s the big thing today? It\u0026rsquo;s philosophy of science. So what\u0026rsquo;s next? It\u0026rsquo;s gotta be philosophy of technology. But within the overall profession, it\u0026rsquo;s totally marginal. Less than marginal. Efforts were made to give it mainstream respectability, but I think we should just give up on it. The way that some of the Dutch try to gain respectability for it\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s just the death of its cultural and social significance.\nJL: So this is something that\u0026rsquo;s relevant for me personally. I would love to see it revived in a more practical and connected way that is doing what the original call of philosophy was, which is sort of what you pointed out: giving people tools for thinking that connect with the way that they\u0026rsquo;re living their lives and help them understand what they\u0026rsquo;re doing.\nWhat the philosophy of technology needs AB: I think one has to be careful not to do this in a sort of procedure- and method-oriented way, you know, \u0026ldquo;I want philosophy that\u0026rsquo;s like this and like this\u0026rdquo;. But rather be content- and substance-oriented. What is it out there that cries out for philosophical illumination? And it\u0026rsquo;s the impact of ICT! What is it doing to people? As far as influence is concerned: Kant says about happiness, don\u0026rsquo;t pursue it. It\u0026rsquo;s a wil-o-the-wisp. What you can pursue and should pursue is being worthy of happiness. The same thing with influence. Don\u0026rsquo;t beat the bushes and\u0026hellip; write something that\u0026rsquo;s worthy of being influential. And then you have to leave it up to the culture, whether it responds or not. But clearly there\u0026rsquo;s something out there. As I said it should be worthy of influence in the sense that if David Brooks\u0026mdash;do you know him?\u0026mdash;if he read it, he would say, \u0026ldquo;Oh my God, yes. That really allows me to talk about things in a way that I\u0026rsquo;ve been struggling to talk about\u0026rdquo;.\nJL: Like you were pointing out with New York Times articles. I read op-eds that show this cultural need where people are aching for the ability to talk about something, and there\u0026rsquo;s books like Matthew Crawford\u0026rsquo;s books, and Sherry Turkle\u0026hellip; there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pop culture stuff coming out that\u0026rsquo;s all sort of throwing a random splash of paint here and here, and it\u0026rsquo;s not really pulling it all together in a philosophically compelling way, but it is showing that that\u0026rsquo;s where the need is, instead of where philosophy of technology currently is, where people are talking about the philosophy of science oriented processes of how technologists work and technology works.\nAB: Right.\nPostscript Author\u0026rsquo;s note: At this point time was up and the interview concluded. I am deeply grateful to Albert for his conversation and hospitality! And I recommend checking out his works, particularly TCCL. Once again, for an overview of that book, refer to my blog series which covers it.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2017/06/interviewing-borgmann-part-4/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAuthor\u0026rsquo;s Note:\u003c/em\u003e This is the last of a 4-part series in which I interview Albert Borgmann, an eminent philosopher of technology. The interview has been transcribed and published here with minimal editing. I recommend starting with \u003ca href=\"/2017/05/interviewing-borgmann-part-1/\"\u003ePart 1\u003c/a\u003e to understand the greater context!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"on-demand-apps-and-the-sharing-economy\"\u003eOn-demand apps and the sharing economy\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJL\u003c/strong\u003e: We\u0026rsquo;ve already talked about the Internet of Things, so I think I\u0026rsquo;ll skip that question. There\u0026rsquo;s this other hot area in technology, which is the rise of on-demand goods and services applications where anything that we want, whether a good or a service, is wrapped up into an app designed to get us that thing as instantly and reliably as possible. You might have heard of Instacart or Uber or all these apps which are replacing the traditional mechanisms for procuring things, in a way which makes them more available. It\u0026rsquo;s the Device Paradigm. But to me it\u0026rsquo;s interesting that it\u0026rsquo;s being splintered into each good or commodity having its own app or service. It\u0026rsquo;s this kind of very clear picture of the fragmentation that you were talking about in your book. People love these apps; people whose lives are busy, for whom going grocery shopping is a chore that takes them away from quality time with their family or the little time that they have after work, or an app that can get a maid to your house in 10 minutes to clean and you never have to see them and it just charges your credit card and it\u0026rsquo;s just so convenient and it frees you up. There\u0026rsquo;s this disburdenment. It\u0026rsquo;s all very Device Paradigm in essence. What would you say to somebody who is really feeling the benefit of that? How could you convince them that maybe this is taking something away, or would you?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Interviewing Borgmann, Part 4"},{"content":"Author\u0026rsquo;s Note: This is Part 3 of a 4-part series in which I interview Albert Borgmann, an eminent philosopher of technology. The interview has been transcribed and published here with minimal editing. I recommend starting with Part 1 to understand the greater context!\nThe promise of technology JL: Sometimes I\u0026rsquo;m talking to people about your work, and, maybe as in the case of the conference I went to, people were familiar with it, but held a common misunderstanding that you are fundamentally opposed to technology or are really negative about technology. But based on some of the things you wrote (and you can tell me if I\u0026rsquo;m getting it wrong) it sounded like you were really affirming some of the original promise of technology\u0026hellip;\nAB: Absolutely!\nJL: \u0026hellip;But really want to caution us not to trade what\u0026rsquo;s meaningful and central in our lives for the sake of availability. And so how would you respond to someone who claims you\u0026rsquo;re anti-technology or anti-progress?\nAB: I sympathize with these people. You have to pigeonhole writers, otherwise you just get lost! They just put me in the wrong pigeonhole, that\u0026rsquo;s all. I think it\u0026rsquo;s just that these people haven\u0026rsquo;t read the book; that\u0026rsquo;s obvious. They\u0026rsquo;ve just heard about it, or they might have read excerpts. I mean, one of the later chapters (I\u0026rsquo;m not sure you have blogged it yet), mentions \u0026ldquo;the recovery of technology\u0026rdquo;. To recover! There is something genuine in this promise of liberation and enrichment. I think focal things and practices help us to recover that promise. Think of an example I use: you go running on a cold, rainy, muddy day and you come back and you\u0026rsquo;re shivering and you think, boy a shower is wonderful. Whereas a shower every morning..? Or hunger: if you allow yourself to get hungry, if you\u0026rsquo;re totally spent and hungry and then there\u0026rsquo;s a Big Mac\u0026hellip; well that\u0026rsquo;s a great thing. It\u0026rsquo;s just this super-saturation with commodities that makes us ungrateful. And there\u0026rsquo;s a tragedy, I think, in technology, and it\u0026rsquo;s probably haunting your work too, Jonathan, and that is that information technology is just a marvel of ingenuity and cooperation. Physically, conceptually: it\u0026rsquo;s amazing! Totally amazing. And how did it happen? Through cooperation. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t Edison who did it, or Neumann, the mathematician, or whoever. It\u0026rsquo;s thousands and thousands of people who contribute their little part. Something like this is a marvel. And you can\u0026rsquo;t help but be full of admiration. And so the ingenuity, the devotion, the intelligence, the self-sacrifice that goes into it is amazing. And then what is it used for? What\u0026rsquo;s this thing used for? All my students as soon as they get out of class\u0026hellip;\nJL: Instead of elevating us it\u0026rsquo;s distracting us.\nAB: So there is this terrible asymmetry between the ingenuity that goes into the means and the stupefaction that it largely has. And again, of course, you have to acknowledge the possibilities and limited actuality of people using an iPhone to stay in touch with their children, or staging a revolution, or\u0026hellip; if iPhones were used for just that\u0026hellip; I think they sold 13 million of their new iPhone 6?\nJL: The 6S that was just released?\nAB: They wouldn\u0026rsquo;t sell them if there weren\u0026rsquo;t all these teenagers looking at their smartphone.\nJL: \u0026hellip;who already had the previous revision of the iPhone anyway!\nAB: So I think the problem is not that technology needs to be scolded and condemned and vilified. It needs redemption! We have to recover a sense of how wonderful it is and I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s going to happen without a grounding in something that\u0026rsquo;s not technological. Sometimes I just have to shake my head. People say, \u0026ldquo;Borgmann doesn\u0026rsquo;t allow for the fact that devices can be engaging!\u0026rdquo; I have examples of engaging devices. Fine downhill skis that allow you to do things that with the old wooden boards you weren\u0026rsquo;t able to do.\nJL: Yeah I like what you were talking about in some of the chapters on nature. There are two things I appreciate. One is you acknowledge the reality that a nice pair of trail running shoes in a sense is a device, but in a sense one shouldn\u0026rsquo;t refuse them on the grounds that it\u0026rsquo;s not traditional. At this point, going off into the wilderness without the appropriate gear is just courting danger and disaster in a way that\u0026rsquo;s irresponsible. The truth is that we don\u0026rsquo;t have to do it the way the early pioneers did it anymore. There\u0026rsquo;s sort of a mature acquiescence to that, saying we no longer have to put ourselves in that much danger to go outside. But we can still go outside, and in a way, like maybe with the example of these downhill skis, technology can be used not to take us away from that engagement, but to give us an ability to experience it with fewer barriers. So a nice pair of trail running shoes enables you to have the feeling of moving through the woods like a wild creature in a way that a heavy pair of leather hiking boots from 100 years ago would not give you the ability to do.\nVirtual reality, videogames, and technological \u0026ldquo;art\u0026rdquo; AB: Exactly. The requirement is that devices be transparent to reality. And of course virtual reality is the opposite. It\u0026rsquo;s the exact opposite.\nJL: Sheer opacity.\nAB: Videogames are an example. Are they the successor of nineteenth-century novels? Works of art that should be appreciated? Again I think it\u0026rsquo;s an empirical question. What is it doing to people? What are they doing to people, videogames? Virtual reality is still facing technical problems\u0026hellip;\nJL: It\u0026rsquo;s coming along. Things like Oculus and whatnot, they\u0026rsquo;re moving to mass production pretty soon.\nAB: And then again you have to be an empiricist. Are there virtual reality experiences that people come away from the way they come back from, I don\u0026rsquo;t know, watching a Greek tragedy, or Beethoven\u0026rsquo;s 9th or something like this?\nJL: But isn\u0026rsquo;t there a concern that people would say \u0026ldquo;yes\u0026rdquo;, that the empirical data would show that virtual reality and videogames are like Beethoven simply because our baseline of experience is already so technologized? If all you\u0026rsquo;ve had in your life is a Big Mac and then you go and have a very simple home-cooked meal\u0026hellip; I mean this was the way that I grew up, where actually for my family going out to McDonald\u0026rsquo;s was a treat. For me, that\u0026rsquo;s where I wanted to go on my birthday, when I could choose to go anywhere. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know that it was a technological device, I just knew that I loved these chicken nugget pieces that probably weren\u0026rsquo;t even chicken. For me that was an amazing experience. So if you polled me then, I would say that McDonald\u0026rsquo;s was much better than Grandma\u0026rsquo;s meatloaf or potato casserole or whatever. So that\u0026rsquo;s something that makes me feel a little more distressed. I wonder if the more we \u0026ldquo;progress\u0026rdquo; the more we lose the ability for people to make that comparison for themselves in a meaningful way?\nAB: Right. Well, I think we come back to the question of the Good Life. The question is, let\u0026rsquo;s say virtual reality experiences are becoming common, and some people get really mystical about it, and claim to have mystical experiences or whatever. We just have to see what happens. If it happens that these people come back from these virtual reality experiences in a way where they seem serene, and compassionate, and resourceful\u0026hellip; well fine! Great. Then we want to find out why it\u0026rsquo;s happening and how does it compare with religious or artistic experience. I have my suspicions though\u0026hellip;\nJL: Yeah I suspect that they\u0026rsquo;ll probaby come back more anxious and distracted and it will be harder to live in the real world. They may find serenity but only in the virtual world.\nEvolutionary mismatch theory AB: I think you just have to give the advocates some slack, you know, and say OK let\u0026rsquo;s try it. One thing I may not touch on at all in TCCL is evolution, and one thing I\u0026rsquo;ve learned since is how deeply evolution fits us into the past and into reality and how complex and profound these ties are. Exactly how evolution connects with ethics is complex and interesting, but the way we\u0026rsquo;re put together by nature is to be in the world in an engaged way. That\u0026rsquo;s what makes us happy. That\u0026rsquo;s how we evolved and learned to prosper. There is a whole field called mismatch theory\u0026mdash;have you heard of it? It compares our evolutionary endowments and what\u0026rsquo;s called the ancestral environment (sometimes called \u0026ldquo;the environment of evolutionary adaption\u0026rdquo;), which is the environment that the human family lived through for probably a million years and within which we learned to prosper. We sort of know what it was like from examples of the hunting and gathering cultures that have survived into the 20th century. And then if you articulate these conditions and then compare them with the conditions that the technological culture provides, it\u0026rsquo;s a mismatch. And so people feel anxious, they get obese, they get all kinds of diseases. So virtual reality is, I think, more mismatch. That\u0026rsquo;s a good guess, but I think you should never be dogmatic. You should be liabilist, falsifiabilist, and open to being shown to be wrong.\nJL: Yeah, it kind of puts me in the mind of a couple examples. People who thought that theism and evolution were incompatible, or who think that theism (or Christianity) for example and life on other worlds would be incompatible. For me it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a, well, if there is there is, and it may mean something about God for us or it may not. It might be relevant, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think that one can look at the Bible and presume to know a universal intent around life and the shape that life would take universally. Is that the kind of openness that you\u0026rsquo;re talking about? We just have to kind of see about this virtual reality thing. And we think that it will be probably not a vehicle for let\u0026rsquo;s say some kind of true spirituality, but you don\u0026rsquo;t know until you see how people are shaped by it.\nAB: Yes, exactly.\nJL: So back to this misunderstanding that you\u0026rsquo;re opposed to technology.\nAB: Yeah, I\u0026rsquo;m not mad at these people. Pigeonholing is a survival necessity and so I just get put in the wrong pigeonhole.\nJL: Graciously allow yourself to be the straw man!\nAB: Well I do respond if I come across it.\nJL: I was surprised, because I was reading your book to do a blog just a week before I went to SPT and you had a sentence (it might be the same one you just referred to), which was very positive about the promise and redemption of technology. I came across some people at the conference who had this pigeonholed view of you, and I said, \u0026ldquo;no, I just read this sentence two days ago and I can assure you he\u0026rsquo;s not that\u0026rdquo;. So it does seem the pigeonholing has had its effect over the years.\nAB: That\u0026rsquo;s fine.\nMeaning and significance in a perfectly available world JL: So continuing on from there, I read you as making the claim that a perfectly safe, perfectly convenient world of availability that the Device Paradigm is geared towards is essentially one that\u0026rsquo;s devoid of the possibility of a narrative for human significance. So I wanted to ask, first of all, if that\u0026rsquo;s in fact what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. And if so, how would you motivate that claim in a generation, my generation, that really believes this liberal democratic ideal that meaning and significance are just whatever we choose them to be? And thereby compatible with this perfectly safe, perfectly available world.\nAB: The answer to the first question is yes, and to the second\u0026hellip; The answer to the second connects with things we\u0026rsquo;ve talked about and that is that you have to ask people who center their life in ICT or cyberspace how they\u0026rsquo;re doing. And then at a more philosophically sophisticated level you have to point out to them that people who claim that they\u0026rsquo;re imposing meaning on reality are just the captives of stereotypes. It\u0026rsquo;s fame and fortune! I want to be like Justin Bieber! If you\u0026rsquo;re a boy. Or I don\u0026rsquo;t know, Beyonce.\nJL: So you\u0026rsquo;re essentially saying that this belief that we can choose whatever meaning we want is sort of hollow and empty and not true in practice.\nAB: Right. But there is a grain of truth to this belief and you\u0026rsquo;re the perfect illustration. So Jessica [JL\u0026rsquo;s wife, who grew up in a small town in Illinois] has been blessed with a grounded life, from which she can draw strength and orientation, and for you it\u0026rsquo;s not the case. So it\u0026rsquo;s a distinction of degree of course. You have to sort of be open to things that claim you and learn to see how they converge. It\u0026rsquo;s characteristically American that every person is a point of convergence of many things, and you don\u0026rsquo;t make them converge. They converge in your life, and you have to be alert to them, and of course help them to grow together into something meaningful. So running is part of your life, right? And the experience of nature that comes with it. I take it you run outside?\nJL: Yeah, we live in downtown San Francisco, so as much as I can. I run along the water, but I prefer running on trails, which I just don\u0026rsquo;t get to do very often.\nAB: And then your cuisine is probably a convergence of Mid-western cooking and Texas cuisine?\nJL: Well\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s a little more complicated than that. But cuisine is important to us.\nAB: Well anyway. What\u0026rsquo;s your.. I forget your last name?\nJL: Lipps.\nAB: Is it German?\nJL: Yes.\nAB: So you can\u0026rsquo;t say, I\u0026rsquo;m a Lipps, and the Lippses have always cooked this way! You can\u0026rsquo;t say that. That would be fake. You could embrace it if somehow\u0026hellip;\nJL: If I wanted to reappropriate that ancestral thing.\nAB: You could only reappropriate it if it claimed you in some sense, right?\nJL: I can\u0026rsquo;t reappropriate Native American traditions.\nAB: Right. So these things are philosophically very interesting and subtle. I\u0026rsquo;m a determinist so I think you should think of a person as the wonderful convergence of billions of things. So the people who say you make your own meaning, they\u0026rsquo;re mistaken in this activist way they put it. It should be more receptive. But they\u0026rsquo;re right that the way the meaning of life comes to them does not have the homogeneity of an inherited culture. And that\u0026rsquo;s a wonderful thing.\nJL: So you can choose which convergences you allow to dominate your experiences of life, and there are more convergences than there were maybe 500 years ago because of the more diverse cultural context we\u0026rsquo;ve lived in? Is that what you\u0026rsquo;re saying?\nDeterminism and libertarianism AB: Yeah. Are you a determinist or libertarian when it comes to free will?\nJL: I\u0026rsquo;ve usually been a pretty strong libertarian.\nAB: Yeah, well it\u0026rsquo;s incoherent, I\u0026rsquo;m sorry to say! \u0026ldquo;Free\u0026rdquo; is undetermined, is uncaused, is random. There\u0026rsquo;s no way to break this.\nJL: The way that I break it is countenancing agency as a fundamental universal substance.\nAB: A ghost in the machine?\nJL: Why not?\nAB: JL: We can talk about it at dinner. Nobody believes it, I know.\nAB: Worse than that, you can\u0026rsquo;t tell how a universal agency\u0026hellip; what are the levers that it works on, and how can it work on levers when it\u0026rsquo;s not\u0026hellip; you know it\u0026rsquo;s the Cartesian problem of, I forget the name of the gland, the pineal gland, where he thought that\u0026rsquo;s where the\u0026hellip; at any rate, you\u0026rsquo;re right.\nJL: I\u0026rsquo;m not a substance dualist, but\u0026hellip;\nAB: Well you\u0026rsquo;re courting substance dualism, aren\u0026rsquo;t you?\nJL: Sure. But growing up in the evangelical Christian tradition, courting substance dualism is second nature (pun intended)!\nAB: Well these are the things that make philosophy fun.\nJL: Well let\u0026rsquo;s talk more about that at dinner, it\u0026rsquo;ll be a fun conversation.\nAB: Yeah. So at any rate if you\u0026rsquo;re a determinist like me, what you realize is it\u0026rsquo;s this wonderful situation where billions of things come together and fuse in your mind and in your brain. But they don\u0026rsquo;t fuse mysteriously. They fuse both intelligbly and unreachably. There is a complexity that you understand. 86 billion neurons and trillions of synapses. So there\u0026rsquo;s no way of mapping the thing. And yet, there\u0026rsquo;s Jonathan, there\u0026rsquo;s Jessica, there\u0026rsquo;s me. We\u0026rsquo;re persons! So \u0026ldquo;choosing\u0026rdquo; always needs to be rephrased and that\u0026rsquo;s one of the fun challenges of philosphy. I think it\u0026rsquo;s best to think of oneself as the fusion of many things and being that fusion, you\u0026rsquo;re a force in your own right. You\u0026rsquo;re not just effects. The effects fuse into this amazingly resourceful cause, but the basic attitude is much more one of gratitude than power.\nJL: I definitely agree with that aspect of it.\nAB: These are just, in a way, differences of discourse rather than differences in substance.\nJL: Yeah, it sounds like the attitude we take towards it is pretty similar even if maybe there\u0026rsquo;s a different philosophical basis\u0026hellip; and maybe I\u0026rsquo;m incoherent at the end of the day, but I haven\u0026rsquo;t been shown it sufficiently to agree yet.\nAB: Yeah it\u0026rsquo;s good to resist it for as long as you can! I was a libertarian once. I had this wonderful [friend]\u0026hellip; I mentioned him in the introduction\u0026mdash;John Winnie\u0026mdash;in the acknowledgements at the beginning. He just gave me such a hard time that finally I said, John you\u0026rsquo;re right.\nJL: Well I don\u0026rsquo;t talk to a lot of philosophers anymore so I get to just come up with whatever I want.\nDeictic discourse, transhumanism, and Artificial Intelligence JL: OK so moving on then. At the end of the day in your book you acknowledge in your later chapters that you are speaking, and people need to be speaking, \u0026ldquo;deictically\u0026rdquo; (or \u0026ldquo;paradeictically\u0026rdquo; in the case of being more philosophical), not \u0026ldquo;apodeictically\u0026rdquo; with what you call the cogency or the assent that\u0026rsquo;s forced by purely scientific reasoning. So if I were to try and state this another way, it sounds to me like you\u0026rsquo;re fundamentally assuming a certain mode of human essence and human flourishing, and not trying to substantiate that a priori but rather trying to live in it and reflect it, calling others into participation with it deictically.\nAB: Absolutely\nJL: So for me I\u0026rsquo;m very curious because of something that comes up a lot for me in conversations. I talk with a lot of people who are not necessarily transhumanist but they\u0026rsquo;re kind of Singularity people and whatnot. People who\u0026rsquo;d say that the term \u0026ldquo;human\u0026rdquo; is kind of whatever we make it, maybe in a similar sense as we talked about the term \u0026ldquo;meaning\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;significance\u0026rdquo; before. So in other words, to this concept of human flourishing, which you\u0026rsquo;re trying to speak about from your own kind of deep experience, I imagine someone else saying, \u0026ldquo;that\u0026rsquo;s great, and that seems to be what your definition of being human is. Mine is that I would like to extend my body with these bionic implants so that I have more working memory, so that I become more intelligent according to my understanding of what makes somebody human\u0026rdquo;. A lot of people say that working memory is what defines intelligence, and intelligence defines humanity, so the more working memory you have, the more intelligent you are, and the more human you are. They take this more or less mind-oriented definition. So is there anything you can say to these thinkers? Is a conversation possible? Or do you just have to accept that you\u0026rsquo;re on different planets?\nAB: The question is whether intelligence is the essence of being human, right?\nJL: Well I was giving that as an example. Somebody might have picked something else. I was just trying to highlight how it seems like you\u0026rsquo;re coming to the table with this understanding of what human flourishing consists in. Someone else might say (again like \u0026ldquo;meaning\u0026rdquo;) that you sort of choose what human flourishing means, and then you go with it.\nAB: One thing I\u0026rsquo;m unclear about. Is there a proposal in there, or is it just a skeptical question? If the proposal is transhumanism, Kurzweil-type, it\u0026rsquo;s very specific, and it says the essence of humanty is an intelligence that is substance-neutral.\nJL: So let\u0026rsquo;s take that as the foil. That\u0026rsquo;s something that people argue to me. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if they would choose it themselves, but being skeptics they\u0026rsquo;re bringing it up anyway.\nAB: Lots of the things that were said before apply here too. It\u0026rsquo;s a question of empiricism. What is the case? And the question is, how do you get people into a position such that they see what is the case? I\u0026rsquo;ve written a paper about this, about the Turing Test. I posit that the program passes the Turing Test\u0026mdash;and as you know it\u0026rsquo;s very far from ever doing so\u0026mdash;so let\u0026rsquo;s just assume it and then the question that I pose is, what is it that would make us find that computer to be a commanding presence? Something that we find interesting, noteworthy. So what I\u0026rsquo;m doing is arguing that we\u0026rsquo;re supplying what exactly makes it a commanding presence. So we get these answers [from the computer as part of the Test], and we think, well there must be a person there. So I say let\u0026rsquo;s enrich it and enrich it and enrich it. So there\u0026rsquo;s not only the writing but also voice and so on. And enrich it and enrich it and enrich it and the argument finally says that at every point, if we stop at this stage of enrichment, we will not find that person to be enduringly interesting and worthy of respect.\nWhat makes a person interesting to me is that the person has parents that I can ask the person about, and that they\u0026rsquo;re real parents, not just fake parents. That the person can suffer and prevail against suffering, and if the person is just faking suffering, I\u0026rsquo;ll find their \u0026ldquo;triumph\u0026rdquo; over suffering boring after a while. And then the person being capable of despair. And so the basic idea is that when you detail what it is that makes a person a commanding presence, something that you respect and turn to and hope for and call in the dark night of the soul\u0026hellip; \u0026ldquo;Bill, you gotta come over\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; The person has to be just the way we are. Someone who\u0026rsquo;s capable of believing, of possibly dying and some day really dying. A person who\u0026rsquo;s born, has parents\u0026hellip; And so these computers that supposedly are just as smart as I am are just going to be boring to me after a while. Even though they can fake things\u0026hellip;\nJL: It might fool you but once you were revealed the truth it would eventually lose its commanding sense.\nAB: Right. And people, unfortunately, are willing to supply this\u0026hellip; \u0026ldquo;Her\u0026rdquo;, did you see \u0026ldquo;Her\u0026rdquo;?\nJL: I still need to, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard about it. Or the elderly people with these robots, the caretaking robots that become sources of consolation, but like you\u0026rsquo;re saying it feels like they\u0026rsquo;re giving the robots \u0026ldquo;personhood\u0026rdquo; so they can receive back, not because it\u0026rsquo;s actually there.\nAB: Yeah, they\u0026rsquo;re imagining. Again, empiricism comes in. And I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that the person who made this dog, the Japanese outfit\u0026hellip; they stopped making it.\nJL: I forget what it was called, there was a paper on this at SPT.\nAB: So again, the empirical evidence I suspect will show that people get tired of it. Of course people can live with fantasies for a long time, but again it\u0026rsquo;s a social question. What\u0026rsquo;s going to happen broadly?\nJL: And if society is already kind of empty enough of actual relationship, then an imaginary one, or\u0026hellip; In China I read this article there\u0026rsquo;s a \u0026ldquo;girlfriend\u0026rdquo; app that is becoming really popular that will randomly text young men to make them feel as though they have a relationship. To me it\u0026rsquo;s pointing out how empty the culture is such that that could be a replacement. Not how rich that is in and of itself.\nAB: And more than that I think my expectation is that people will get tired of it.\nJL: Right, that it\u0026rsquo;s a momentary respite from despair.\nAB: The sort of vacuity of the whole thing will become obvious to the persons who for a while are enchanted with it. And again we have to be careful with anecdotes. Anecdotes always dominate.\nJL: Right, that\u0026rsquo;s what\u0026rsquo;s hard for me as somebody who\u0026rsquo;s trying to voice a dissenting opinion. You might say that the facts for a lot of these things aren\u0026rsquo;t really in yet. So I have the skeptical voice and other people have the very positive voice, and there\u0026rsquo;s always enough positive anecdotes that you can sort of skip from one to the other while ignoring the wreckage that lies at the end of each particular trajectory.\nAB: There are, as I said, cases where the accumulating evidence is telling. With food, mental health, and people\u0026rsquo;s avowed unhappiness. So advocates of new technologies who take the kind of empiricist attitude I\u0026rsquo;m talking about as a concession can be countered by saying that there are lots of cases where if we didn\u0026rsquo;t know the social causality, we\u0026rsquo;d still be singing a device\u0026rsquo;s praises, like you with the Big Mac, right? But we no longer say that in some areas. And as I said, distraction will be the next example, then of course global warming. Although global warming is ambiguous morally speaking because as we said before it could be cured in a way that would not unhinge the Device Paradigm.\nJL: It wouldn\u0026rsquo;t make us better people.\nContinued in Part 4\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2017/06/interviewing-borgmann-part-3/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAuthor\u0026rsquo;s Note:\u003c/em\u003e This is Part 3 of a 4-part series in which I interview Albert Borgmann, an eminent philosopher of technology. The interview has been transcribed and published here with minimal editing. I recommend starting with \u003ca href=\"/2017/05/interviewing-borgmann-part-1/\"\u003ePart 1\u003c/a\u003e to understand the greater context!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-promise-of-technology\"\u003eThe promise of technology\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJL\u003c/strong\u003e: Sometimes I\u0026rsquo;m talking to people about your work, and, maybe as in the case of the conference I went to, people were familiar with it, but held a common misunderstanding that \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e are fundamentally opposed to technology or are really negative about technology. But based on some of the things you wrote (and you can tell me if I\u0026rsquo;m getting it wrong) it sounded like you were really affirming some of the original promise of technology\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Interviewing Borgmann, Part 3"},{"content":"Author\u0026rsquo;s Note: This is Part 2 of a 4-part series in which I interview Albert Borgmann, an eminent philosopher of technology. The interview has been transcribed and published here with minimal editing. I recommend starting with Part 1 to understand the greater context!\nThe relativism of technological change JL: Albert, I\u0026rsquo;ve been talking about your ideas with pretty much everyone that has an ear, or half an ear, to listen. It\u0026rsquo;s gotten to the point where, with my group of friends and colleagues, any time a topic comes up that triggers philosophical conversation, they say \u0026ldquo;oh no, Jonathan\u0026rsquo;s about to talk about technology again!\u0026rdquo;\nAB: What sort of work do you do?\nJL: I\u0026rsquo;m a software developer. I\u0026rsquo;ve worked for the last fourG years at a tech startup, a cloud software company called Sauce Labs. We provide a cloud service for testing software applications. So it\u0026rsquo;s a service that people would rely on as a facility to make sure that their new software that they are releasing is high quality. I started as just a developer and I\u0026rsquo;m now in a management role so I don\u0026rsquo;t do a lot of software work. All this to say, most of the people I talk to about this are programmers.\nAnyway, so I talk to a lot of people and I get a lot of responses about the ideas that I communicate, which I take largely from your work. It\u0026rsquo;s always a challenge to figure out how to elocute it. My initial tendency was to start at a kind of abstract level and talk about the Device Paradigm. Sometimes people get it and sometimes people don\u0026rsquo;t, but the inevitable question is, \u0026ldquo;So what? What does this framework have to do with anything?\u0026rdquo; I\u0026rsquo;ve tried different strategies, and I\u0026rsquo;ve heard a number of different responses and I want to ask you about a couple of these responses that I hear, to know what you would say about some of these things. One of the most common responses I hear is a version of what I call the \u0026ldquo;Douglas Adams argument for technological relativism\u0026rdquo;. He has a quote that a lot of people know. He calls this the rules that describe people\u0026rsquo;s reaction to technology.\nRule 1: anything that is in the world when you\u0026rsquo;re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.\nRule 2: anythig that\u0026rsquo;s invented between when you\u0026rsquo;re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.\nRule 3: anything invented after you\u0026rsquo;re 35 is against the natural order of things.\nIn other words, when people bring this kind of response up to me, it seems like they\u0026rsquo;re interpreting what you\u0026rsquo;re saying as simply a common reaction that old people have to new things. \u0026ldquo;Oh, that\u0026rsquo;s unnatural!\u0026rdquo; When the telephone was invented, there were some old people that said, \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s unnatural\u0026rdquo;, but now it\u0026rsquo;s the most normal thing, and we can even talk about talking on the phone with people nostalgically. But there was a class of people at some point who said, \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s horrible, we\u0026rsquo;re not going to see each other face to face anymore\u0026rdquo;. So it\u0026rsquo;s a relativistic argument or maybe a slippery-slope type argument that\u0026rsquo;s designed to show that we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be concerned about what seems unnatural now, because it will seem natural later. So really there\u0026rsquo;s nothing to be concerned about. I see your work as saying something deeper that\u0026rsquo;s not really susceptible to that argument but it\u0026rsquo;s hard to know how to frame that, so what would you say?\nAB: The argument is bad, right? The chickens expect the farmer to feed them day after day, but one day the farmer comes and wrings their neck! So I think it\u0026rsquo;s a bad argument, but a better reply is perhaps to say that technological culture had culturally detrimental impacts. This used to be easily dismissed. The reply to the criticism was exactly what your colleagues say: \u0026ldquo;So what?\u0026rdquo; But now, for better or worse, we\u0026rsquo;re at a stage where the detrimental effects are just obvious, and the two are obesity (and other self-inflicted diseases, which are a terrible problem, and due to the Device Paradigm running amok) and global warming. So you can\u0026rsquo;t say, \u0026ldquo;Oh, 2/3 of the people were always overweight, and most of the diseases were self-inflicted\u0026rdquo;. That\u0026rsquo;s just not true! And you can\u0026rsquo;t say, \u0026ldquo;Oh well, nature can always absorb what we throw at it. It\u0026rsquo;s resilient\u0026rdquo;. Well, it\u0026rsquo;s not.\nJL: So we\u0026rsquo;re sort of coming to the end of the line for that particular argument, where it\u0026rsquo;s shown to be false by experience.\nAB: Right. And the next one is going to be distraction. The inability to focus on a demanding task. And distraction I think is going to be the mental counterpart to obesity.\nJL: The result of mental fast food?\nAB: Exactly. And so that\u0026rsquo;s just sort of breaching the wall. But then you have to go on and ask, is there something like the Good Life? Or is it just that all kinds of lives are equal? So all these stars O.D. and kill themselves; that\u0026rsquo;s ok! They\u0026rsquo;re going out the way they want to go out with the highest possible high. Or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s their children being totally aimless and not knowing what to do. I have at one time collected all the rueful columns just in the New York Times where people say, \u0026ldquo;There are terrible things happening to my children! What I\u0026rsquo;m doing to them is terrible, but I can\u0026rsquo;t help myself.\u0026rdquo; So is it all OK? And the thing about moral arguments is that a person can say, \u0026ldquo;Yes!\u0026rdquo;\nJL: Right, but then their blood is on their own heads, essentially.\nTechnology, the Good Life, and happiness AB: In a more recent book I say that you have to put people in (I forget how I phrased it) a benevolent, disinterested position. Benevolent: they\u0026rsquo;re people of good will. Disinterested: you\u0026rsquo;re not talking about them, because then they\u0026rsquo;re defensive. And how do you get them into that position? It\u0026rsquo;s when you ask them as parents, \u0026ldquo;What do you want for your children?\u0026rdquo; What kind of life? And then I make it a little more concrete by having a fairy godmother appearing and then asking questions, and then develop the notion of the Good Life following the traditional virtues of wisdom, courage, and friendship. Wisdom: knowledgeable, understanding the way the world works. Courage: physically active, at ease with their bodies. Friendship: warm, sustaining relationships. So would anyone say \u0026ldquo;Oh no, not my kid! I want my kid to be obese like everybody else! I want them to be ignorant!\u0026rdquo; You know? Google it if you want to know! And then you\u0026rsquo;re able to move people into a position that\u0026rsquo;s a little less flip and a little more thoughtful. They got sort of a glimpse of what the Good Life is, and then there\u0026rsquo;s good social science research that supports it\u0026hellip; Have you heard of Martin Seligman? The book Authentic Happiness is a great convergence of social science and virtue ethics. When it comes to wisdom, education is a good thing for happiness. Then physical activity is good for happiness, and then of course warm and enduring social bonds are crucial to happiness.\nJL: I think I see what you\u0026rsquo;re saying. He\u0026rsquo;s actually using data from social sciences to support a kind of virtue ethics perspective on the Good Life, and you see that as a good trend in that kind of research.\nAB: Yeah, I think if you\u0026rsquo;re in the philosophy of society and culture you have to pay attention to the social sciences. You may just be wrong about claims that you make.\nJL: You have to look at what\u0026rsquo;s actually happening in the world to inform your philosophy about what\u0026rsquo;s good for people or not good for people.\nAB: The social scientists never ask exactly the questions you\u0026rsquo;d like them to ask, so you have to draw inferences and then of course you have to be critical of the social sciences. They\u0026rsquo;re often mistaken. But people definitely know when they\u0026rsquo;re miserable! So it\u0026rsquo;s not as though you can tell a person who\u0026rsquo;s terribly depressed, \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re not really depressed.\u0026rdquo;\nJL: Some people try, but they know.\nAB: This gets us into complex issues. Professed happiness, avowed happiness. How valid is it? But social scientists have ways of establishing validity and reliability. And so if people say, \u0026ldquo;Yeah I\u0026rsquo;m happy\u0026rdquo;, then you go out there, ask their neighbors, look at them, see how they\u0026rsquo;re doing. You correlate their avowed profession of happiness with how they actually live. You know, there are kinds of happiness where people make distinctions between enduring happiness and momentary happiness and the sum of lots of momentary happiness is not the same as enduring happiness.\nJL: Similar to the reaosn why hedonism has never made sense to me as a personal philosophy even though it\u0026rsquo;s the philosophy that pretty much everyone around us in San Francisco professes to follow, because \u0026lsquo;happiness\u0026rsquo; is an empty category. It means whatever you want it to mean, so how can it be a guide to life? Basically everyone ends up saying you define pleasure in whatever way you want. Long-term, short-term. But I find it to be a meaningless guide to the Good Life in that sense.\nAB: Right.\nThe possibility of focality in technological devices JL: OK. I want to get back to some of these responses. Another response I hear after talking about some of your ideas with people, even if they\u0026rsquo;ll agree with the basic points, is that they view technological devices as having a lot more promise within themselves for meaning, for human meaning. Many of my colleagues believe that technological devices could become focal things or practices, so people talk about having more \u0026lsquo;real\u0026rsquo; experiences with online communities than in their local physical environment, or getting extremely skilled at a video game that demands a lot of actual engagement and quasi-physical-but-intellectual skill. You think that chess might be a focal practice, so why not this video game? Or kinds of artistic expression that you can have with digital media that you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have with other kinds of things. Even in some of the research that I did for the paper I gave at the conference [ SPT 2015], talking about the open source software community in its early incarnation exhibiting some more \u0026ldquo;focal\u0026rdquo; features that then lessened as that community evolved. So what would you say about these possibilities for focality within something that we might in a large picture view as a technological device? Are these possibilities real? How do they compare to the kinds of focal things and practices in your book, like running and so on?\nAB: It\u0026rsquo;s an empirical question, so we have to find out what the case is. The next thing is you have to distinguish between possibility and actuality. Possibilities instantiated anecdotally? Well great. But actuality is measured by what I would call \u0026ldquo;social causality\u0026rdquo;. What\u0026rsquo;s the broad impact of devices? There we depend on the social sciences. So what\u0026rsquo;s the broad impact of the availability of seductive, tempting food? You can say, \u0026ldquo;Well some people sit down with a Big Mac and for them it\u0026rsquo;s just a feast!\u0026rdquo; Fine. But what\u0026rsquo;s the broad impact?\nJL: So you can acknowledge that possibility of that sacred experience with the Big Mac, but then you look at the broad strokes of what that does to culture, and it\u0026rsquo;s a different picture.\nAB: Then you have to ask yourself, why that broad impact? What is it in the culture that makes the impact of engineered food so detrimental? And then I think you come to the conjunction of disburdenment and enrichment that is so seductive and still propelling the culture. What makes that kind of disburdenment and enrichment possible? It\u0026rsquo;s some sort of machinery. If people didn\u0026rsquo;t have the Device Paradigm writ large and instantiated in so many ways, that disburdenment wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be possible. Every person would have to have 1,000 slaves, and that\u0026rsquo;s not a culture we could accept. So these are the stages. The first is possibility vs actuality. And then, what\u0026rsquo;s the actuality? And then, why does it have this broad impact?\nContinued in Part 3\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2017/05/interviewing-borgmann-part-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAuthor\u0026rsquo;s Note:\u003c/em\u003e This is Part 2 of a 4-part series in which I interview Albert Borgmann, an eminent philosopher of technology. The interview has been transcribed and published here with minimal editing. I recommend starting with \u003ca href=\"/2017/05/interviewing-borgmann-part-1/\"\u003ePart 1\u003c/a\u003e to understand the greater context!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"the-relativism-of-technological-change\"\u003eThe relativism of technological change\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJL\u003c/strong\u003e: Albert, I\u0026rsquo;ve been talking about your ideas with pretty much everyone that has an ear, or half an ear, to listen. It\u0026rsquo;s gotten to the point where, with my group of friends and colleagues, any time a topic comes up that triggers philosophical conversation, they say \u0026ldquo;oh no, Jonathan\u0026rsquo;s about to talk about technology again!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Interviewing Borgmann, Part 2"},{"content":"Author\u0026rsquo;s Note: In October 2015, Jessica and I drove across the western United States. When we passed through Montana, we had the opportunity to meet Albert Borgmann, my favorite philosopher of technology, at his home. Over the past half-decade, I have blogged chapter-by-chapter through his book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (see the Overview to check out that series). It was a rare gift to be able to sit with this gracious and wise human being for several hours and ask him all the questions that arose from my study of his work. The following is a barely-edited transcript of that interview, ranging across a variety of philosophical and cultural topics. Because of its length, the interview is separated into several parts.\nIntro \u0026amp; Reception of TCCL Jonathan Lipps: Technology and the character of contemporary life. It\u0026rsquo;s a very long title, and hard to say! So I say \u0026ldquo;TCCL\u0026rdquo;. I thought it was an extremely profound book, and I\u0026rsquo;m curious as a newcomer to the field in the last 30+ years since you wrote it, what has its reception been, and what kind of debate has it generated?\nAlbert Borgmann: Well, there is actually a book titled Technology and the Good Life? which is a reflection of the early reception. It\u0026rsquo;s an anthology of comments. That was done by three young people who got excited about it, and since then it\u0026rsquo;s been\u0026hellip; you know, people who write about philosophy of technology consider TCCL a book they should know. Of course you get pigeonholed after a while. The pigeonhole replaces detailed engagement with the book. I think the most rewarding and perhaps important impact was with people like you. Who\u0026rsquo;s Jonathan, you know? How did he come across that book? It\u0026rsquo;s widely scattered. For a while there was, as one of the contributors of the anthology said, sort of a Borgmann \u0026ldquo;school\u0026rdquo;. It\u0026rsquo;s still being read. It pops up in various places, among people who are not philosophers. So that\u0026rsquo;s very rewarding of course to find out. But in the large sense it didn\u0026rsquo;t make any difference to the culture. I can\u0026rsquo;t think of a book that has. Perhaps Michael Harrington, How the other half lives, something like this. That supposedly inspired the war on poverty.\nJL: So you\u0026rsquo;re saying books generally don\u0026rsquo;t impact culture very much?\nAB: No they don\u0026rsquo;t. There\u0026rsquo;s sort of the melancholy example of John Rawls\u0026rsquo;s Theory of Justice. This is one of two really important books of American philosphy in the 20th century. It took the academy by storm. The bibliography is probably 200 pages by now! In the last book that he supervised (although he was too ill to edit it himself) the editor says that John Rawls realizes that the country has been moving in the opposite direction from what he recommended. So if this fantastic book, so important and magisterial, didn\u0026rsquo;t make a dent in the culture, then all we can expect is that we sort of sow some seeds, you know, and it germinates here and germinates there. We should be grateful if that much happens.\nJL: That sounds like a mature perspective!\nJL: This is bringing up another question: who did you originally write it for? Who was the first audience you had in mind?\nAB: Fellow philosophers. As you can tell having read it, it uses philosophical terminology, and I never wrote a book in that style again. I\u0026rsquo;m always surprised that people like you actually work their way through it. The books that i\u0026rsquo;ve written since are much more accessible.\nJL: Well it took me a long time. And I have philosophical training.\nAB: And what is your training?\nJL: I got a bachelors and a masters in philosophy. So I was familiar with the terminology, but even so there was enough meat there that even being familiar with the terminology it took a long time to digest. It\u0026rsquo;s a short book but it probably took me a year or a year and a half to read through. I could only read in bits at a time.\nAB: But it\u0026rsquo;s still I think the most widely read and most influential book of the ones that I\u0026rsquo;ve written. So that\u0026rsquo;s always surprised me. Even at the time when I wrote it, when I still tried to impress my colleagues (which I no longer do).\nAffirmations and Retractions? JL: So, again kind of looking at the expanse of time from then to now, you\u0026rsquo;ve obviously had a lot of time to reflect on the ideas that you put forth then. I imagine that some things you would say, yes, I continue to affirm this, maybe I affirm it even more. But what would you say has stood the test of time? Are there any things you would instead revise or rephrase?\nAB: I unfortunately got it right the first time! You must know Hilary Putnam? Hilary Putnam glories in his changes. \u0026ldquo;What is Hilary thinking now?\u0026rdquo; people ask themselves. But if you got it right the first time, you can\u0026rsquo;t say \u0026ldquo;I changed my mind.\u0026rdquo;\nJL: There are no more books you can write!\nAB: I\u0026rsquo;ve tried to expand and elaborate it, and that\u0026rsquo;s essentially what I\u0026rsquo;ve done. In some ways it\u0026rsquo;s dated, the philosophy of science that I use. But I think I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t take anything back. One thing that might have been good is to use the term \u0026ldquo;commodification\u0026rdquo;. I talk about it, and I may have used \u0026ldquo;commodifying\u0026rdquo;, but \u0026ldquo;commodification\u0026rdquo; makes a good link to things that worry people. And so it\u0026rsquo;s a good entry, but that\u0026rsquo;s a very minor thing.\nJL: It was on point enough for me to read it nigh on 30 years later and find enough in my experience to say, \u0026ldquo;this is something I\u0026rsquo;m going to pay attention to\u0026rdquo;. So I don\u0026rsquo;t disagree! But wanted to give you the opportunity to elaborate.\nAB: Well, I didn\u0026rsquo;t foresee\u0026hellip; I talk about computer technology which was just sort of beginning.\nJL: Yeah, you talked about \u0026ldquo;the coming microelectronic revolution\u0026rdquo;\nAB: Yeah, right. I think something that needs philosophical examination or articulation is the uncanny influence that ICT has on the culture. That something would have that pervasive and in many ways insidious force, I didn\u0026rsquo;t foresee. One thing I was sort of too optimistic about, and I would take back, is global warming. As you may remember, I extend the Device Paradigm to \u0026ldquo;spaceship Earth\u0026rdquo; and I say, people take care of their cars, they\u0026rsquo;ll take care of spaceship Earth! But they\u0026rsquo;re not. They may yet. And clearly, if they do, I think the major impetus will still be the Device Paradigm. So it\u0026rsquo;s not the people who want to go back to reality, who say let\u0026rsquo;s solve the problem by doing less and less and less by way of conquering and modifying and shaping.\nJL: Yeah, now it\u0026rsquo;s more like, let\u0026rsquo;s figure out how to do more of that to save ourselves!\nAB: There are people like that, and I think that\u0026rsquo;s the most hopeful development that I see. The problem is that all these hopeful developments in farmer\u0026rsquo;s markets, the craft industry, little shops like this that buck up against Starbucks, furniture makers, the bicycle people\u0026hellip;\nJL: The whole artisan movement.\nAB: Yeah. It\u0026rsquo;s not getting critical mass culturally and politically speaking. And so it is boxing under its weight. I\u0026rsquo;m sort of waiting for that! Why don\u0026rsquo;t these people see that they\u0026rsquo;re doing the same thing at bottom and then assert their cultural, economic, and political power? But to get back to global warming and the Device Paradigm, it\u0026rsquo;s the people who have sort of bought in to the Device Paradigm who will continue to dominate the discussion. An interesting illustration of what happens is what happened to the term \u0026ldquo;sustainability\u0026rdquo;. That was sort of the purview of the environmentalists. And the Brundtland Report (she was the Prime Minister, I think, of Norway)\u0026hellip; It\u0026rsquo;s another report on dangers and drawbacks of technology, and that we have to have sustainability. And the environmentalists got really angry because they felt that the term was co-opted, subverted. So that\u0026rsquo;s an illustration. As you know, technology never says \u0026ldquo;no, we\u0026rsquo;re not going to do that\u0026rdquo;. Rather technology always says \u0026ldquo;ok, what\u0026rsquo;s the problem? We\u0026rsquo;ll solve it\u0026rdquo;. So the tendency unfortunately is that technology will co-opt the forces of reform and renewal. That\u0026rsquo;s a good thing. We\u0026rsquo;ll be better off if the Device Paradigm serves or aids in reducing or stopping (eventually) global warming than not.\nJL: But it doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that we won\u0026rsquo;t do the same thing with some other planet that doesn\u0026rsquo;t have the same problems. What I\u0026rsquo;m hearing is that it\u0026rsquo;s always in response to a problem that can be defined rather than proactively thinking about forestalling a problem in the first place.\nAB: Well, who knows what\u0026rsquo;s going to happen. There are three scenarios. The worst is we\u0026rsquo;ll just continue like this. And leave your and my distant offspring a terrible, terrible planet. That\u0026rsquo;s the worst. The second best and second worst is that people will continue the way they live except they will use little electric cars instead of SUVs, but they\u0026rsquo;ll still be riding around, isolated\u0026hellip;\nJL: We\u0026rsquo;ll increase efficiency so we\u0026rsquo;ll have the same lifestyle with less cost.\nAB: Exactly. That\u0026rsquo;s the second worst and the second best. If that happens, even a person I greatly admire like Barack Obama, that\u0026rsquo;s sort of the way he sees it. Fine. Great. It\u0026rsquo;s a lot better than the worst. But the best would be that people would say, we have to do two things. One, save the planet, and also lead a better life.\nJL: To have a sort of spiritual, cultural revolution.\nAB: Right. And my hope is that that will happen. And of course it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be one or the other.\nJL: So ultimately, going back to our entree into this rabbit trail, you were saying you were maybe a little bit too optimistic that we were going to be following that best option, and now you\u0026rsquo;re wondering if maybe that\u0026rsquo;s not as realistic?\nAB: Well, I advocate for it, I hope for it, and devoutly wish it\u0026rsquo;s going to happen that way. But as you remember there\u0026rsquo;s one thing I called the \u0026ldquo;unwarranted optimism of the pessimists\u0026rdquo;. Things might have to get so bad that people have to be good. Technological structures might have to collapse. And I don\u0026rsquo;t think that\u0026rsquo;s going to happen. So we can\u0026rsquo;t predict, with a sort of satisfaction, that \u0026ldquo;people will come to us\u0026rdquo;.\nJL: We can\u0026rsquo;t be self-righteous that everything will come crashing down and that people will see, because as you put it the Paradigm is pretty resilient, pretty strong. It seems to have the resources within itself to cope with these kind of inner stability problems.\nThe Explosion of the Internet JL: OK, let\u0026rsquo;s move on. Something that I think a lot about: the most obvious (to me) since the time you wrote is the explosion of the Internet, online culture. More and more our entire lives are being orchestrated using the Internet as a medium for that. So how would you extend the arguments you made in your book to apply to the Internet? Or more generally I\u0026rsquo;m interested to hear you comment on this successor to the microelectronic revolution that you talk a little bit about.\nAB: Well, I think it\u0026rsquo;s the intensification of the Device Paradigm. So the machinery has become totally impenetrable. The Volkswagen disaster is an example.\nJL: I haven\u0026rsquo;t heard about that. What happened?\nAB: VW put software into their diesel cars that senses when it\u0026rsquo;s being tested, and then kicks in the pollution control. But as soon as the sensor tells it you\u0026rsquo;re on the road again, it\u0026rsquo;s turned off! And they spew 40 times the amount of nitrous oxide. It took people 6 years to nail it, because there are proprietary barriers, and just the sophistication of the software and the way it\u0026rsquo;s concealed in a chip. The opacity of the world is just tremendous. The kind of disburdenment is also tremendous. The Internet of Things is an important step because you\u0026rsquo;re using ICT, but here\u0026rsquo;s Jonathan, here\u0026rsquo;s the ICT, and you know you\u0026rsquo;re using it. But in the Internet of Things, you know, the Internet of Things would have known that you guys liked coffee, so my house, being smart, would have known that. And my house would have somehow found out that you\u0026rsquo;re going to be here at 3, so it would have made coffee, and so all the little interchanges we had about how to grind it, and all that, would be gone! And for all I know it would have put the dogs in the kennel. The disburdenment is becoming so radical as to be ludicrous! You can only marvel at the force of the Device Paradigm. It just continues and continues. It looks around for the last things that can be commodified!\nJL: I know! I have this question later but talking about Internet of Things\u0026hellip; I live in a town where people are working in the Internet of Things and every day a new startup is created. It seems like an effort to proactively turn everything into a device pre-emptively. We don\u0026rsquo;t even have this burden yet, we don\u0026rsquo;t even know that it\u0026rsquo;s burdensome, but let\u0026rsquo;s go out there and pre-emptively relieve that burden before people even realize it\u0026rsquo;s a burden!\nAB: Right. That was Steve Jobs\u0026rsquo;s genius. He had a sense of that.\nJL: Before people knew what they wanted to be freed from, yeah.\nThe Acceleration of the Device Paradigm JL: So yeah, thanks for that response. One other thing that struck me as you were talking about the opacity going to infinity. Also the configurability of the surfaces can be achieved nearly instantaneously. With the devices that you considered in your book, things like TVs and what not, they at least take some effort to manufacture the next generation of. But with the Internet, with a site like Facebook, it will push a new version of itself hundreds of times a day. So it\u0026rsquo;s almost like this evolution that you pointed out of things becoming less burdensome, more \u0026ldquo;pure surface\u0026rdquo;, less \u0026ldquo;inner workings\u0026rdquo;\u0026hellip; It\u0026rsquo;s a continual thing now because the cost to change it, with everything being software, is so low. So it feels like we\u0026rsquo;ve reached some point where, since we\u0026rsquo;ve sold the entire workings of our lives to software, it\u0026rsquo;s very easy for the Device Paradigm to go as fast as it wants. Do you see that kind of thing happening?\nAB: Absolutely. One thing I also see is that there is a need to articulate it in a new way\u0026hellip; essentially the Device Paradigm 2.0. This sort of gradual, step-by-step, invisible change. The whole way that the Internet informs the way that we see the world. It\u0026rsquo;s crucial that somebody articulates this and then you\u0026rsquo;d have to hope that would become part of the common discourse. Apple has come out with the iPhone 6 or whatever. The reports are invariably supportive, and if they\u0026rsquo;re critical, they\u0026rsquo;re not critical of the idea of an iPhone.\nJL: It\u0026rsquo;s just the things that aren\u0026rsquo;t working quite perfectly yet.\nAB: Yes. In a lot of other reporting, the economy say, the military, policies and so on, there is sort of the addition that says, \u0026ldquo;critics, however say\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;. That never comes!\nJL: No one is a critic of technology.\nAB: The critics are the columnists who sort of ruefully report on how they suffer and lose things, or aren\u0026rsquo;t feeling well. It gets this sort of sporadic and anecdotal attention, but it does not have a firm place in the culture.\nJL: It\u0026rsquo;s a kind of rearguard action.\nAB: Yes. There\u0026rsquo;s a need there, and philosophers, of course, are missing in action. The philosophy of technology now is sort of veering towards analytic philosophy so it\u0026rsquo;s always this intramural discussion. Little things.\nJL: Yes, that was my experience of going to the Society of Philosophy of Technology conference.\nContinued in Part 2\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2017/05/interviewing-borgmann-part-1/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAuthor\u0026rsquo;s Note:\u003c/em\u003e In October 2015, Jessica and I drove across the western United States. When we passed through Montana, we had the opportunity to meet Albert Borgmann, my favorite philosopher of technology, at his home. Over the past half-decade, I have blogged chapter-by-chapter through his book \u003cem\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/em\u003e (see the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e to check out that series). It was a rare gift to be able to sit with this gracious and wise human being for several hours and ask him all the questions that arose from my study of his work. The following is a barely-edited transcript of that interview, ranging across a variety of philosophical and cultural topics. Because of its length, the interview is separated into several parts.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Interviewing Borgmann, Part 1"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m writing this blog entry on a Microsoft Surface Book Pro i7, which is admittedly a bit odd for me. While I grew up using Windows PCs, I switched to Mac about 12 years ago and never looked back. As both a developer and a producer of creative artifacts (music, for example), I\u0026rsquo;ve been a big fan of the Mac OS and ecosystem. Being Unix-based and having a simple and elegant design philosophy, for the most part I\u0026rsquo;ve never had any reason to think about switching back to Windows (except for the odd game here and there).\nThe only work I have done on Windows in recent years has been in conjunction with my work on Appium, the cross-platform mobile automation tool. We\u0026rsquo;ve supported Windows for years, but I\u0026rsquo;ve hardly ever worked with Appium on Windows myself. Occasionally I\u0026rsquo;d fire up a VM and see if I could get Appium to install from NPM, but that\u0026rsquo;s about it. And to be honest I always felt a little dirty aesthetically afterwards; the blocky OS felt like a representation of the clunkiness inside.\nOn the other hand, my impression of Microsoft as a company in recent years has become better and better. From making a decisive move into open source involvement, to releasing Chakra, to doing the \u0026ldquo;right thing\u0026rdquo; with their more recent web browsers, to building Visual Studio Code in Electron with web technologies, and more recently dropping the bombshell of the Linux Subsystem (Bash on Windows), my esteem for the company\u0026rsquo;s strategy has grown. They\u0026rsquo;ve clearly decided to meet developers where they are at, building whatever kind of apps they are building, on whatever platform. It\u0026rsquo;s refreshing.\nSo imagine my surprise when Microsoft reached out to me to share they were working on an Appium-compatible automation driver for Windows desktop apps! I was thrilled that a big player like Microsoft was looking at the WebDriver protocol and what we had done with Appium as a good model. Maybe it was because I was just flattered on behalf of Appium, but my esteem grew even more. Last year I spent some time in Redmond with the team at Microsoft working on this, and had my first exposure to the modern development experience on Windows. I was expecting to be disgusted and horrified, but I wasn\u0026rsquo;t. It seems that in the 12 years since I\u0026rsquo;ve stopped paying attention to Windows, they haven\u0026rsquo;t been going randomly in circles. I\u0026rsquo;m a big Vim / Tmux / terminal-only development guy, and the Microsoft aesthetic of everything being a GUI button in Visual Studio, and allowing IntelliSense to turn your brain to mush, was just not my thing. But playing with VS Code, and seeing the wealth of plugins provided (yes, even a solid Vim emulator), made me realize that Microsoft is trying to attract all speeds of developer, including even potentially myself.\nThis became a little more concrete when they recently reached out to offer me a chance to play with a new Surface Book. I unboxed it, set it up, and have been using it for some time now. This is the first in a series of articles I\u0026rsquo;ll write on my experiences with it. Initial impressions, comparisons with what I\u0026rsquo;m used to from high-end Mac laptop-land, and tales from my journey to getting a dev environment set up that meets my needs.\nInitial Impressions What follows is a silly stream of consciousness of my initial impressions:\nWow this is heavy! Actually it\u0026rsquo;s not that heavy. Actually to be fair it\u0026rsquo;s probably 1/4 the weight of the last Windows laptop I owned. Still, it feels a bit heavier than my Mac. This looks surprisingly clean and well-designed. Where is the power button? How do I turn this on? Ohhh, there\u0026rsquo;s a button on the screen that\u0026rsquo;s more like a tablet power button. This thing comes with a pen? oh cool! I\u0026rsquo;m now starting everything up. I get to pair the pen. Something about \u0026ldquo;Windows Ink\u0026rdquo;; I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what that is, maybe a drawing app? This is kind of long setup process. And of course I am turning off everything that sends data to Microsoft. No data sending please. And no I don\u0026rsquo;t want to use my face to sign in (how barbaric). No, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to use OneDrive. No, I don\u0026rsquo;t want to use Cortana. Ok. I\u0026rsquo;m in and playing around. Hmm, what is this weird button with an icon with an arrow on it? WOAH the screen comes off!!! I did not realize this thing had a detachable screen. Clearly I have not seen any of the advertisements for this laptop. WOAH there\u0026rsquo;s a handwriting recognition deal!!! I can use the pen to write and it turns it into text. Well, I\u0026rsquo;m probably not going to do any coding with this but this is kind of cool. I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize I was getting a tablet to play with in addition to a laptop. Now I\u0026rsquo;m turning on Windows Insider because my main goal is to get to Bash/Linux as quickly as possible and try to get set up with that. After a while I notice that I\u0026rsquo;m scrolling views with the trackpad just like I\u0026rsquo;m used to. This is a welcome change from before, where it had the opposite direction of scroll on my Mac. In a flight of fancy I check out the hardware specs to see if this machine could actually run some of the modern games that are only available on Windows. Not that I would do that of course, I\u0026rsquo;m just curious! And in any case it looks like the integrated graphics card isn\u0026rsquo;t quite what I would need to play No Man\u0026rsquo;s Sky, for instance? So this was my initial experience, admittedly more positive than I expected, and the integrated tablet model worked a lot better than I\u0026rsquo;d expected it would, too. When the screen is off, it really does feel like a tablet (albeit a heavy, power-hungry one), and when it\u0026rsquo;s on, it really does feel like a laptop. (A remark on the weight: despite feeling heavier to me, according to specs it\u0026rsquo;s actually slightly lighter than my 15\u0026quot; Macbook Pro. Maybe it felt heavier because the way the weight is distributed is different than what I\u0026rsquo;m used to, and I interpreted that mismatch in sensation as greater weight?)\nOne note on power consumption: my first several days using the machine, I would close the laptop lid for the night and then pick it up again sometime the next day. Inevitably, the power had completely drained and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t use the computer. This to me was a pretty big deal\u0026mdash;I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to have to remember to completely power down the machine every time I wanted to stow it for more than an hour or two. Happily, with a recent update (whether for all users or just Windows Insider people, I don\u0026rsquo;t know), power management seems to have been ameliorated somewhat.\nAfter a few days of casual use, I decided that I still like the detachable screen, primarily for web browsing or engaging with media, but I\u0026rsquo;m not sure whether I\u0026rsquo;d use it as a replacement for an iOS or Android tablet, mostly because of the app ecosystem and the optimization on those devices for power consumption and heft. Then again, I don\u0026rsquo;t own an iOS or Android tablet because I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t use one enough to justify the purchase anyway. I also decided that while the pen is a really cool idea, I\u0026rsquo;m likely not the target audience for it. If I were going to take notes, draw, or do other creative things with this machine, I\u0026rsquo;d probably get more into it.\nOK, that\u0026rsquo;s the end of the first entry in this little series. Overall I was really impressed, after expecting to be underwhelmed. It struck me that this is a machine I could carry around and do actual work on. That is, assuming I can get all my apps and my development environment set up in a satisfactory way. And that will be the topic of my next entry: how did I turn this from a stock Windows machine into something a Node.js hacker wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be ashamed to use?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2017/01/notes-on-the-surface-book-pro-i7-part-1/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m writing this blog entry on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnet.com/products/microsoft-surface-book-i7/review/\"\u003eMicrosoft Surface Book Pro i7\u003c/a\u003e, which is admittedly a bit odd for me. While I grew up using Windows PCs, I switched to Mac about 12 years ago and never looked back. As both a developer and a producer of creative artifacts (music, for example), I\u0026rsquo;ve been a big fan of the Mac OS and ecosystem. Being Unix-based and having a simple and elegant design philosophy, for the most part I\u0026rsquo;ve never had any reason to think about switching back to Windows (except for the odd game here and there).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Notes on the Surface Book Pro i7, Part 1"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nTechnology promised us liberty and prosperity, but in significant ways this has not come to pass. In the industrialized nations we are free from hunger, disease, and illiteracy, but increasingly, commodities overflow in the center of our lives and we have become shallow people. We take pride in our technological means without caring much about what they are for. We have created genuinely amazing technological devices, but being human is about more than that. We must go beyond freedom from disease (the negative freedom that technology has provided) to engaging with life.\nWithin the technological paradigm, the kind of life we have embarked on instead is trivial, bored, over-entertained, over-stimulated and under-engaged, surly, unimpressed, and routinized. The reform we want to see takes technology and gives it back a supporting role in the human drama. Engagement with focal things and practices, and the manifold ways such engagement graces us, is what should occupy our center. We\u0026rsquo;re not talking about returning to pre-technological life, or convincing others to be anti-technological, but rather living a life that understands the place of technology and consciously limits it for the sake of something better.\nIn this arrangement, focal concerns are even more beautiful than we could see in pre-technological areas, and technology attains a new nobility by supporting these concerns rather than usurping their place. What\u0026rsquo;s the fate of this imagined reform of technology? What\u0026rsquo;s the fate of technology itself? Well, we can measure the success of the reform by the degree to which focal concerns grow and flourish in our society. And of course technology itself is not going to disappear. On the potential of reform, Borgmann is not anxious, and I\u0026rsquo;ll end this series by quoting the final words from his book:\nOne would rightly be nervous about the possibility that a great thing may fail accidentally, that the kingdom may be lost for want of a nail. But our focal concern will languish or prosper for essential reasons. I hope it will prevail, and it sustains my hope.\n[Photo: Death Valley bloom, by the author]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2016/04/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-26-the-recovery-of-the-promise-of-technology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e Technology promised us liberty and prosperity, but in significant ways this has not come to pass. In the industrialized nations we are free from hunger, disease, and illiteracy, but increasingly, commodities overflow in the center of our lives and we have become shallow people. We take pride in our technological means without caring much about what they are \u003cem\u003efor\u003c/em\u003e. We have created genuinely amazing technological devices, but being human is about more than that. We must go beyond freedom from disease (the negative freedom that technology has provided) to engaging with \u003cem\u003elife\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 26, \"The Recovery of the Promise of Technology\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nWe come finally to the last substantive chapter in Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s essay on technology. It also happens to be the longest, so buckle up! The question is: can the reform of technology, so vividly imagined as \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo; defined by focal concerns in the previous chapter, be taken out of private life into the public sphere, ultimately changing the very heart of the systems that we have so little power over as individual citizens?\nOne option would be to press for legislating morality, arguing that technological reform is really moral reform that should be encoded in the legality or illegality of individual behaviors. This is what conservatives generally try to do in other spheres. But Borgmann points out, echoing his thoughts in Chapter 14, that \u0026ldquo;morality\u0026rdquo;, especially traditional morality, is a less commanding force in the lives of most citizens than conservatives usually estimate, even as a concept. (And of course it doesn\u0026rsquo;t help conservatives that they often undercut their moral argument by trying to outlaw certain types of supposedly immoral individual behavior while simultaneously promoting clearly unjust and immoral economic policies that have wide-ranging negative impact). In other words, this strategy would be paternalistic, harmful, and ultimately self-refuting (according to the norms of deictic discourse).\nAnd it is in fact in the laws of the economy that Borgmann thinks we have the greatest opportunity to effect real change. What does economic reform that leads to technological reform look like? It begins with convincing the public that the \u0026ldquo;quality of life\u0026rdquo; and the \u0026ldquo;standard of living\u0026rdquo; are not one and the same. As a society our economic policies have been focused on the standard of living (as measured by the production and possession of commodities) as a proxy for quality of life, but in fact this is a bad proxy, as the previous chapter showed. We thought that \u0026ldquo;affluence\u0026rdquo; was what technology promised us, but it turned out to be hollow, a never-ending escalator of commodity consumption. Instead, Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s concept of (non-material) \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo; is what truly leads to higher quality of life. Thus we need to convince the public to focus on quality of life at the expense of the standard of living, to argue that economic policies which promote such a view are a good trade.\nHow is such convincing even thinkable? How do we take the world of focal concerns (private, deictic discourse) into the world of labor and politics (public, political discourse)? We can\u0026rsquo;t impose some \u0026ldquo;national focal concern\u0026rdquo;. We can\u0026rsquo;t remake society on the model of pre-technological production; at this point there\u0026rsquo;s no getting rid of technology, in the background of production at least. Individual focal concerns could bubble up naturally through the disparate care and passion of individual citizens, but what about an actual public discourse? What will help is to bring to light the pattern of technology (what this book has been about) and talk about it. But in terms of actual change, again only deictic discourse will sway the public\u0026rsquo;s heart. And so far we\u0026rsquo;ve only seen deictic discourse effective in more private arenas, about the majesty of private pursuits like running and so on.\nPart of the problem again lies in how the pattern of liberal democracy is set up. Public deictic discourse would expose the world to some kind of moral critique or evaluation, and liberal democracy is organized so that such critique is kept out of the public sphere. The legal system is idealized as amoral, like a technological device, at least in terms of how it understands itself (of course, it smuggles moral considerations in through the back door by tacitly specifying a concrete vision of the good life, as Borgmann discussed in earlier chapters). So we come back to the earlier question: how could economic reform be possible, given the challenges inherent in public deictic discourse?\nWithout getting into the professional economic implementation details, we can say that it begins with the philosophy of economics, which is currently complicit with the technological paradigm in its singular focus on the \u0026ldquo;standard of living\u0026rdquo; or affluence (paralleling the Device Paradigm\u0026rsquo;s focus on \u0026ldquo;availability\u0026rdquo;), falsely narrowing the scope of the good life. Lester Thurow has said, \u0026ldquo;Man is an acquisitive animal whose wants cannot be satiated. This is not a matter of advertising and conditioning but a basic fact of existence\u0026rdquo; (231). Thus the justification of acquisitiveness as the fulcrum of economic philosophy. But Borgmann points out that this doesn\u0026rsquo;t accord with what we actually know of the greater part of human history, where, once basic needs were satisfied, time was spent in non-acquisitive activities like play or celebration.\nIn reality, our society has a lot of economic margin to consider reform. We\u0026rsquo;ve proved this by enduring recessions and spending exorbitant amounts of money on military activities, all without substantially reducing the standard of living (at least in aggregate; of course the burden of recessions falls disproportionately on the poor). What could convince us to scale back our rabidly consumptive spending? Focal practices! As we saw in the previous chapter, focal practices subvert the individual\u0026rsquo;s race to affluence. (This is the deictic discourse of \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo; vs \u0026ldquo;affluence\u0026rdquo; in general, not a discussion of this or that focal practice.)\nSo it seems possible to engage the public in this way. But do people actually want reduced affluence to attain \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo; in Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s sense? Studies do suggest a general willingness to cultivate a \u0026ldquo;simpler\u0026rdquo; lifestyle, but maybe this is purely aspirational. What we need is a \u0026ldquo;collective affirmation\u0026rdquo; on a societal level, like we have in cultural norms of politeness (on the invisible end of the spectrum) or in the Constitution (on the formal end of the spectrum). Borgmann thinks we already have a sense of the tension between \u0026ldquo;quality of life\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;standard of living\u0026rdquo; in the form of the tension between considering public goods to be indicative of economic success in our country versus a standard of measurement like the GNP. Here, \u0026ldquo;public goods\u0026rdquo; parallels \u0026ldquo;quality of life\u0026rdquo;, and \u0026ldquo;GNP\u0026rdquo; parallels \u0026ldquo;standard of living\u0026rdquo; (a much simpler financial measure, to be sure, than the value public goods like infrastructure, water, parks, public spaces, etc\u0026hellip; provide).\nTransitioning to a model of economic success built on top of the quality of life would inevitably entail a certain shrinkage of the technological machinery at the heart of our industrialized society, but not by orders of magnitude. Many people would still work in the maintenance of said machinery, or would perhaps have no work at all. But what about work, which has been the cornerstone of meaningful engagement with the world up until the Industrial Revolution? We already see people who don\u0026rsquo;t strictly have to work returning to artisan-style pursuits\u0026mdash;bakers, potters, metalworkers, etc\u0026hellip; And Borgmann sees in this an opportunity for the institution of a two-sector economy.\nWe already have a two-sector economy, really: mega-corps on one hand and small businesses on the other. They represent two systems: the \u0026ldquo;planning system\u0026rdquo; and the \u0026ldquo;market system\u0026rdquo; respectively. The planning system operates basically according to the technological pattern of availability, and so they grow in tandem, taking over more and more of the market system. Borgmann wants to see us create space for those who do \u0026ldquo;engaging work\u0026rdquo;, even if people choose that work because their previous roles have been made redundant by technical automation. Engaging work is not about eliminating technology entirely, but about technology moving to the background so that the work itself can be in the center:\nEngaging work is largely dependent on [technology] for tools, machines, energy, materials, transportation, and communication. But it will not adopt technological devices indiscriminately. The criterion will be whether a device is helpful or detrimental to a worker\u0026rsquo;s skill and to the focal depth of the work.\u0026quot; (239)\nSo we want to see a two-sector economy where the production of certain goods like food, furniture, clothing, health care, education, arts instruction, etc\u0026hellip;, is entrusted to local, labor-intensive industries (where \u0026ldquo;engaging work\u0026rdquo; happens). The \u0026ldquo;planning system\u0026rdquo; or a centralized industrial economy would then take care of infrastructural goods like transportation, utilities, communication, as well as the tools and materials required by the other sector, insurance, finance, and R\u0026amp;D. Technology would live on here as the context for the former sector, not the center of our lives. We would encourage this economy not by imposing quotas or embargoes on the planning system, but rather by giving tax credits or breaks to the local, labor-intensive sector so that they become competitive in the market for their goods. Of course, there are lots of potential problems with this sketch, but the basic ingredients are there, as long as we are willing to accept a reduction of overall affluence to subsidize these quality-of-life improvements.\nBorgmann closes the chapter by exploring two concrete political issues as examples of how we could engage on a political level to help the cause of technological reform: the plight of large cities and social justice. He shows how the technological pattern has been instantiated in these parts of life to detrimental effect (the urban/suburban distinction mirrors the labor/leisure distinction, for example), and how a public focus on quality of life rather than affluence would serve to forestall the disintegration of civic life and the reduction of social justice. He wants to see public structures \u0026ldquo;opened up\u0026rdquo;, i.e., made intelligible and inviting for us to engage with. The artifacts of our technological substructure like dams, power plants, office buildings, etc\u0026hellip;, could be redesigned so that they are not opaque, intimidating, or lifeless, and instead invite curiosity and understanding. Likewise we need memorable places in the sense of places that allow engagement, not just passive enjoyment (cf. the fate of churches or cathedrals in so many European cities). We need, as he says, an \u0026ldquo;enactment of culture\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;spaces designed for the focal concerns of sports, music, arts, worship, and work.\nSocial injustice is a more visible problem. Borgmann laid out the problem in Chapters 13 - 16: liberal democracy has allowed the broad middle class to tacitly specify a definition of the good life that is actually complicity with technological consumption. Social injustice has become the hidden injustice that allows that consumption to continue. If the middle class were to care more about quality of life than the standard of living (affluence), and is able to seek after wealth of engagement via focal concerns, then that wealth is open to everyone in a way that affluence was not. There is no more need for the moving escalator that keeps classes forever divided. And of course letting go of affluence as the end goal means that there is more likelihood that money, the means by which the lower classes might achieve a basic quality of life, won\u0026rsquo;t just pool together, locked in the upper echelons.\nIn sum, Borgmann thinks that the path to political affirmation of the reform of technology is this: deictic discourse leads to collective affirmation, which leads to a two-sector economy focused on quality of life and engaging work, which can lead to a reform of the cities and bring about greater economic justice. At that point we\u0026rsquo;ll have begun a true and lasting reform of technology\u0026mdash;not eliminating it, but putting it in its place as the servant of the good life.\n[Photo: Athens, by the author]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2016/04/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-25-political-affirmation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e We come finally to the last substantive chapter in Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s essay on technology. It also happens to be the longest, so buckle up! The question is: can the reform of technology, so vividly imagined as \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo; defined by focal concerns in the previous chapter, be taken out of private life into the public sphere, ultimately changing the very heart of the systems that we have so little power over as individual citizens?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 25, \"Political Affirmation\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nAs we saw in the last chapter, Borgmann thinks focal things and practices (gathered together under the heading of \u0026lsquo;focal concerns\u0026rsquo;) are central to the kind of reform of technology we need. In this and the next chapter, he wants to (a) defend focal concerns from any philosophical worries, and (b) show how focal concerns constitute the kind of reform of technology that we need. This chapter looks at focal concerns on a personal level, and so connects them up with a reform of technology in our personal, more than our public, lives. This is why the name of this chapter is \u0026ldquo;Wealth and the Good Life\u0026rdquo;: focal concerns constitute \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo;, and lead to the much-sought-after \u0026ldquo;good life\u0026rdquo; that technology has been promising to us but failing to deliver.\nThe main philosophical worry about focal concerns as presented in the last chapter is their plurality. I take it that Borgmann sees two potential problems under this heading:\nWe have to ask: is it even possible to figure out what all the focal things and practices out there have in common? Is there, in other words, some kind of necessary and sufficient definition we can give of what focal concerns are? If not, then it appears on the surface that Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s idea of focal concerns may not be formulated clearly enough to bear the weight of technological reform. What about the sheer diversity of focal concerns? Doesn\u0026rsquo;t this bring up issues around which concerns are to be considered more or less focal? If my focal concern is so grounding and enriching in my life, won\u0026rsquo;t I be forced (out of genuine sympathy) to attempt to convert others away from their focal concerns and over to mine? How can a bunch of varied practices (even if we can answer the first problem above) present a unified front when it comes to technological reform? We might say that these are the \u0026lsquo;philosophical\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;practical\u0026rsquo; problems of plurality for focal concerns.\nLet\u0026rsquo;s take the \u0026lsquo;philosophical\u0026rsquo; problem first. What could philosophically tie focal concerns together? Borgmann examines what he takes to be the most likely candidate, in the form of John Rawls\u0026rsquo; \u0026lsquo;Aristotelian Principle\u0026rsquo;, which says that the excellence of our life is determined by the complexity of the faculties that we develop. In other words, the more complex skills we cultivate, the more we partake of \u0026rsquo;excellence\u0026rsquo; (something Borgmann definitely cares about as well in the context of focal concerns). Could this principle suffice to capture what we mean by \u0026lsquo;focal concerns\u0026rsquo;? Let\u0026rsquo;s examine a few examples: on this view, people should prefer chess to checkers because chess is more complex and demanding. Likewise people would prefer checkers to watching TV, for the same reason.\nSo far, so good. But when we come to examine technology, it seems the principle loses some of its bite: complexity is in no way a counterforce to technology. Couldn\u0026rsquo;t technological devices (like highly targeted workout machinery) be more \u0026lsquo;complex\u0026rsquo; than their analog equivalents? Isn\u0026rsquo;t a machine that allows individual muscle groups to be sensed and worked with precision more complex than the simple act of walking or running? So it appears the Aristotelian Principle as it stands does not capture what is essential about the difference between technological devices and focal concerns. Could it be extended, though? Let\u0026rsquo;s take the contrast between a great chef or a great runner and a fast food junkie or a treadmill enthusiast. What is different between the two sets? Well, the difference is engagement. The chef and the runner are fully (mentally, physically, perhaps even spiritually) engaged with their activity, whereas the fast food junkie is merely consuming, and the treadmill runner is merely using their body for some extraneous end (fitness). So perhaps \u0026rsquo;engagement\u0026rsquo; can replace \u0026lsquo;complexity\u0026rsquo; as the philosophical essence of focal concerns?\nUnfortunately, we run into problems here as well. Borgmann envisions a fan of computer games arguing that their games are just as engaging as something Borgmann takes to be a paradigmatic focal practice, e.g., fly-fishing. And nowadays, thirty years after TCCL was published, we would in some cases find ourselves hard-pressed to deny this (take for example the meteoric rise of eSports and the high level of training, dedication, strategy, and teamwork involved in professional video gaming). So our problem is this: it seems on the surface at least that \u0026rsquo;engagement\u0026rsquo; can be technological, but all along we have said that focal concerns are meta-technological.\nOne way out is to say that technological engagement is only apparent, not real. We could argue that they are one-dimensional in that they don\u0026rsquo;t connect us to the wider physical universe of which we are a part. A computer game does not (in the way other mental practices like musical composition or poetry do) gather together some meaningful aspect of reality and present it to us in a new and engaging way. The reply to this would then be that games do help us connect with a deeper reality\u0026mdash;the reality of the computer world. Borgmann thinks this is disingenuous in that he sees being at home in the \u0026lsquo;computer world\u0026rsquo; as equivalent to being at home with the device paradigm\u0026rsquo;s pattern of commodity consumption. But what about computer engineers themselves? Aren\u0026rsquo;t they in touch with something deeper than their users might be? Indeed hardware or software engineering is often practiced as art for art\u0026rsquo;s sake (something I know full well, being a software engineer myself). And Borgmann grants that, \u0026ldquo;inasmuch as computers embody and illuminate phenomena such as intelligence, organization, determination, decidability, system, and the like, they surely have a kind of focal character, and a concern with computers in that sense is focal as well.\u0026rdquo; But he goes on to say, \u0026ldquo;the focal significance of work with computers seems precarious to me and requires for its health the essentially complementary concern with things in their own right. Otherwise the world is more lost than comprehended\u0026rdquo; (217). In other words, focal things in the computer world are not strong enough to grace us in their own right, something we appreciate in the more traditional kind of focal things and practices Borgmann has discussed so far.\nOn this point, Borgmann does ask in passing this important question: can a device ever become a focal thing, \u0026ldquo;one that, whatever its genesis, has taken on a character of its own, that challenges and fulfills us, that centers and illuminates our world?\u0026rdquo; We can\u0026rsquo;t know for certain, he says; we will have to wait and see. But for the time being that is no reason to abandon the focal things that are still in front of us! Anyway, it appears that we have exhausted the search for a philosophical unity behind focal concerns that truly captures what is distinct about them. What about the other problem, the \u0026lsquo;practical\u0026rsquo; problem of focal concern plurality?\nThe problem, again, is that fly-fishing and running can\u0026rsquo;t both matter in the most ultimate sense. In pre-technological times, this was not a problem because it was only the religious life that mattered in the most ultimate sense\u0026mdash;every other focal concern was arranged underneath it. But eventually the primacy of the church\u0026rsquo;s control over our understanding of reality was dissolved, in the course of various reform movements, the scientific revolution, the rise of democracy, and finally technology itself. We have begun to see the actual world as one out of a great range of possible states of affairs.\nBorgmann\u0026rsquo;s first response to the issue of plurality of focal concerns in this regard is to say that perhaps this isn\u0026rsquo;t so much a problem for the theory as it is for us. The fact that George Sheehan\u0026rsquo;s focal practice is running rather than music implies not a deficiency in music enthusiasts but in Sheehan himself! As he says: \u0026ldquo;When a musician tells me Beethoven\u0026rsquo;s Opus 132 is not simply an hour of music but of universal truth, is in fact a flood of beauty and wisdom, I envy him. I don\u0026rsquo;t label him a nut\u0026rdquo; (213). We must understand that no one person can realize everything we as humans are capable of when it comes to focal experiences. But by cultivating our own focal practices we can join with the rest of humanity by contributing our own experience. In other words, we can see this plurality of concerns positively rather than negatively.\nUltimately, Borgmann thinks the plurality problems are not really problems for focal concerns. Still, it would be nice to be able to discern affinities between them, not as a way of describing a cogent philosophical umbrella per se, but as a set of \u0026lsquo;family resemblances\u0026rsquo; that help us to say, with regard to a particular thing or practice we are considering, \u0026ldquo;Aha! Now that looks like a focal concern!\u0026rdquo; (Likewise, religion is still available as an umbrella concern, and no doubt for many people it is very effective in ordering their other focal practices, but Borgmann assumes for the time being that we will not find a generally-accepted umbrella concern like this that can serve as the basis for public reform of technology, given the fundamental pluralism of religious views in our country.) What we can say regarding focal concerns is this: \u0026ldquo;A focal practice, generally, is the resolute and regular dedication to a focal thing. It sponsors discipline and skill which are exercised in a unity of achievement and enjoyment, of mind, of body, and the world, of myself and others, and in a social union\u0026rdquo; (219). So, how does this understanding of focal concerns lead to a reform of technology (remembering from previous chapters that what we need is a reform of the paradigm, not a reform from the paradigm)?\nWell, on one hand, it would not look like a restructuring of the Device Paradigm itself. The Device Paradigm can\u0026rsquo;t really be restructured because it is already perfectly architected according to the terms it takes to be valid. I.e., the process of taking goods and making them progressively more \u0026lsquo;available\u0026rsquo; (in Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s technical sense) can\u0026rsquo;t be improved upon. Any failure is deemed to be a failure of availability, and that is precisely what the Paradigm is constantly working to achieve. On the other hand, it would also not look like the dismantling of technology itself. But what it would look like is the \u0026quot; recognition and restraint of the paradigm,\u0026quot; restricting it from access to the sphere of focal concerns. Technology becomes no longer the dominant, unrecognized, default way of being, but one that we can take up and put down in a new maturity.\nHow does this look in practice? Well, someone whose focal practice is running might still acquiesce to using a car to drive to work; i.e., they would not insist on running everywhere. And, consonant with the Device Paradigm, they would want their car to be safe, fast, and so on (in addition to being as environmentally-friendly as possible, given their love for the outdoors, etc\u0026hellip;). But when it comes to the focal practice itself, they would leave the car behind. Engagement with running would not take place on the terms of the Device Paradigm. In other words, focal practices engender a selective attitude with regard to technology, not a wholesale adoption of it. Technology is relegated to a place of lesser importance in our lives, and only judiciously allowed into the foreground. People whose focal things have radiated out from their surroundings and into their lives might appear quixotic or quaint to others, and this must be accepted, in the face of a culture that values mainly the display of commodities.\nOf course, this attitude could also lead to an overzealous self-sufficiency or insistence on a do-it-yourself methodology, wherein life becomes so full of the preparation for focal things that the things themselves and their enjoyment are not to be found. Imagine people who are constantly buying backpacking gear but never going outside, or constantly remodeling their home but never enjoying it. At some level, Borgmann says, we must, while holding on to our criticality, allow technology to do its job of disburdening us, to \u0026ldquo;allow celebration and world citizenship to prosper in the time that has been gained\u0026rdquo; (222). Our lives can benefit from the fruits of technology while not being ensnared by the deadening commoditization that the Device Paradigm brings, or by the endless cycle of labor for leisure\u0026rsquo;s sake. Focal practices allow us to put technology in its proper place. And this is where we get the idea that they constitute \u0026lsquo;wealth\u0026rsquo; for us:\nSuch a life is centrally prosperous, of course, in opening up a familiar world where things stand out clearly and steadily, where life has a rhythm and depth, where we encounter our fellow human beings in the fullness of their capacities, and where we know ourselves to be equal to that world in depth and strength. (223)\nThis is very different than \u0026lsquo;affluence\u0026rsquo;, the possession of many commodities. This kind of wealth will be connected with politics and economics in the next chapter, but for now we connect it to the private sphere, with the traditional concepts of \u0026rsquo;excellence\u0026rsquo; (cashed out in terms of world citizenship, gallantry, musicianship, and charity), and \u0026lsquo;family\u0026rsquo;.\nWorld citizenship: within the technological paradigm we learn about our world from a firehose of too much information, shredded into colorful bits of data and delivered in as entertaining a way as possible. We need a center from which to appropriate the world; we cannot comprehend it from the disembodied \u0026rsquo;nowhere\u0026rsquo; that is the Internet. Focal things can help give us that grounding. Gallantry: Borgmann defines \u0026lsquo;gallantry\u0026rsquo; today as the fitness of our bodies for greatness and for responding to the playfulness of the world. Technology has co-opted the depth of this idea and turned physical fitness into something which is sheer surface: the cultivation of a perfect body in appearance, achievable by science, diets, conforming to norms of fashion, etc\u0026hellip; Focal practices can help us rediscover what it is to be fit, not for the sake of appearance or according to an external standard, but as a way of engaging with the world through running, hiking, etc\u0026hellip; Musicianship: this virtue has survived somewhat unscathed in the transition to a technological world, and retains connections with traditional excellence. However, technology commoditizes it, makes it available in a way that cheapens the practice of making music. So wealth in this area will look like reminding ourselves of the treasure that music actually is, restraining our consumption of it so as to appreciate the focal practice that results in transcendental live performances in the company of others. Charity: our technological society is depressingly self-oriented, and we have by and large lost touch with the virtue of charity. Focal practices can help us encounter life in a more raw way, one where we are not simply given what we want, which helps us to grow in empathy. Technological citizens are so disengaged as to be calloused by default. Deliberately choosing to live more simply would put us in touch with the plight of others, whom technology does not benefit as it has us. Family: as we discussed in Chapter 18, the modern family has been disintegrated by technology. One consequence is that it has left parents with nothing to do in the service of raising their children. Focal practices allow families to share in an engaging pursuit and form traditions. They give the parents something meaningful to impart. And of course they enable the possibility of enjoyable shared experiences. This was just a sketch of how this life of \u0026lsquo;wealth\u0026rsquo; generated by focal concerns can begin a reform of the technological paradigm, not by destroying technology or banishing it out of our lives, but by refusing to let it take the place of what is ultimately meaningful for us. In the next chapter, we will carry these ideas forward into the realm of politics, the public sphere of engagement, and see how a reform of technology in that sphere would benefit not just us as individual persons but society as a whole.\n[Photo: Badlands, taken by the author]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2016/01/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-24-wealth-and-the-good-life/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e As we saw in the last chapter, Borgmann thinks focal things and practices (gathered together under the heading of \u0026lsquo;focal concerns\u0026rsquo;) are central to the kind of reform of technology we need. In this and the next chapter, he wants to (a) defend focal concerns from any philosophical worries, and (b) show how focal concerns constitute the kind of reform of technology that we need. This chapter looks at focal concerns on a personal level, and so connects them up with a reform of technology in our personal, more than our public, lives. This is why the name of this chapter is \u0026ldquo;Wealth and the Good Life\u0026rdquo;: focal concerns constitute \u0026ldquo;wealth\u0026rdquo;, and lead to the much-sought-after \u0026ldquo;good life\u0026rdquo; that technology has been promising to us but failing to deliver.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 24, \"Wealth and the Good Life\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThe previous chapter took Nature as an intuitive source of helpful challenges to the technological paradigm. But Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s insight, spelled out in his concept of \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;, is that what is true about Nature can be explored in a more general fashion. Moreover, Borgmann actually thinks that technology, while it can be a challenge to what we find meaningful in life, for that very reason heightens its beauty. We therefore don\u0026rsquo;t need to be pessimistic about its survival; we just need to pay attention to how and where we can cultivate focal things and practices despite the challenge that goes along with such effort.\nSo, what is a focal thing or practice? First of all, what is \u0026lsquo;focus\u0026rsquo;? We can find two senses of it: the first is from the Latin word for \u0026lsquo;hearth\u0026rsquo;, where we can see a focus as that which gathers social reality and arranges it around itself. The other sense is later, meaning the \u0026ldquo;burning point of a lens or mirror\u0026rdquo;, in other words, where optical lines converge. As Borgmann says, \u0026ldquo;Figuratively they suggest that a focus gathers the relations of its context and radiates into its surroundings and informs them. To focus on something or to bring it into focus is to make it central, clear, and articulate\u0026rdquo; (197).\nExamples of focal things are not hard to find, and extend beyond the wilderness: music, gardening, the culture of the table, and running constitute a few. We might intuitively understand that these are \u0026lsquo;focal\u0026rsquo; in some sense, but we\u0026rsquo;d all have to agree that they are scattered and disparate, totally unlike the focal things of pre-technological times, like temples, which had a place of physical and cultural prominence (in addition to \u0026ldquo;focusing\u0026rdquo; the divinity of their surroundings into one structure).\nFor Heidegger, this role of the temple\u0026mdash;gathering in and disclosing the givenness of its surroundings\u0026mdash;is central to art and historical existence. Technology, on the other hand, is for him a metaphysical development that deals in pure conditionality\u0026mdash;what might (or might not) be the case in whatever circumstance. Conditionality (potential realities based on lawlike extrapolations of variable states of affairs) is totally different from givenness (what truly is). Heidegger tried to recover this givenness, finding it in simple, concrete artifacts like an earthenware jug. A simple jug by its shape and purpose discloses what it means to hold as well as to give. It gathers together sky, earth, rain, and grape together in the wine it serves, revealing them to us, teaching us about refreshment and invoking the divine (via the tradition of libations, or something else).\nWhile Borgmann is sympathetic to this way of thinking, he fears that we moderns have lost the ability to listen to earthenware jugs the same way we have discarded temples; outside of a very specific set of circumstances, a jug will just be a jug, and a temple a building. What is essential is to uncover the pattern of technology, to perceive its central emptiness, so that focal things regain a place in our ontology, where they had before been crowded out. Moreover, we need to go beyond focal things to practices, and to an engagement with society and politics, which of course is where things themselves exist. Essentially, we need through a cultivation of focal practices and political engagement to strip the gag from focal things and allow them to have a voice in deictic discourse.\nNow to more examples. Nature was a good one! What about one that\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;closer to home\u0026rdquo;? Borgmann examines two in the course of the chapter: running and the culture of the table. He picks these in part because he believes that we have all experienced in some way or another the feeling of a run (or at least a brisk walk), and a simple good meal at home in the presence of good company, and that we will understand the contrast between them and sitting indoors for weeks, or grabbing a quick meal from a fast-food chain.\nUnfortunately running outside and homemade meals are nowadays fleeting experiences. Philosophers, politicians, and technologists have not developed them as part of a wider discourse. Instead, practitioners (the runners themselves, for example) have been the ones who have been witnesses of the focal power of these practices. This is excellent, as far as Borgmann is concerned, for these people can actually speak deictically to us! Melville, Thoreau, Pirsig, and Maclean are all helpful. Even instruction manuals for hiking or backpacking can have strikingly deep philosophical reflection and insight.\nFor running, Borgmann chooses George Sheehan\u0026rsquo;s Running \u0026amp; Being to bear the torch. Running is different than driving. In both activities we can say we have \u0026lsquo;achieved\u0026rsquo; something, but in driving it is the technological achievement of having extracted stored energy from the earth, which of course I had no particular hand in making happen. I can\u0026rsquo;t really take any credit for it even though I benefit. \u0026ldquo;I am a divided person; my achievement lies in the past, my enjoyment in the present. But in the runner, effort and joy are one; the split between means and ends, labor and leisure is healed\u0026rdquo; (202). Running engages the mind and body, which is different from \u0026ldquo;exercise\u0026rdquo;, which works the body while leaving the mind disengaged. Running on a treadmill is an efficient, disassociating kind of activity in which I use my body while doing the best I can not to be bored, often by watching TV or listening to music\u0026mdash;a perfect example of a \u0026lsquo;divided person\u0026rsquo;. In outdoor running, mind and body are intimate with the world. We know the world more deeply by running through it than driving past it in an enclosed cage. Not only that, \u0026ldquo;serious running takes us to the limits of our being\u0026rdquo; (204) through encountering the pain of effort and working with our bodies.\nAnother example of a focal practice is the \u0026ldquo;culture of the table\u0026rdquo;, i.e., cultivating homemade meals accompanied by conversation in the presence of others. Because of our technological capabilities or our human uniqueness, we often stand over or against the world; coming into immediate contact with the world is therefore something special, and this happens in a meal: \u0026ldquo;Truly human eating is the union of the primal and the cosmic. In the simplicity of bread and wine, of meat and vegetable, the world is gathered\u0026rdquo; (204). The great meal is a focal event which gathers the family and the gifts of nature and delivers them to us in the flow of our unique culinary traditions, recollecting our ancestral research into food and our particular branch of humanity\u0026rsquo;s customs. Technological eating is divided into form and function; in a festive family meal, eating once again engages us fully.\nBorgmann acknowledges that in the course of any meal there is an element of sheer consumption. In the great meal, that is only part of the structure, however; there is also a moment of reflection (or prayer), a sequence of courses, memorable conversation, all clothed with the desire to respect one another and the event via the discipline of table manners. Activities are embodied in persons\u0026mdash;the dish and cook, the vegetable and gardener, etc\u0026hellip; This meal is not characterized by consumption and anonymity. It could even be called religious, or sacred (and many special traditional meals have that character explicitly).\nIn our technological setting, the great meal is necessarily understood differently than in a pre-technological one; for us, rather than it being the necessary way of things, it can become something more: a place of calm, of memory. A place where there is respite from the striving for consumption and a restoration of the depth of the world.\nEngaging in focal practices like running or cultivating homemade meals is clearly possible for all of us to do (even if only because our technological society has given us that opportunity!). Everyone can run or make a meal from scratch. So why don\u0026rsquo;t we, as a society? Well, first of all, our labor\u0026mdash;that which we spend most of our time doing\u0026mdash;is exhausting. When we return home from it, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to say \u0026ldquo;yes\u0026rdquo; to the least burdensome diversion that approaches us (e.g., TV). And so ultimately the rule of technology, which we have been examining all these chapters, is stronger than any ad hoc willpower we might possess. The whole framework of our world validates my desire to simply kick back in the easy chair and watch a movie, beer in hand. If we care about running or making meals from scratch, the only thing that will suffice is turning them into an actual practice, not a series of one-off events we hope will be the norm. Borgmann says, \u0026ldquo;\u0026hellip;without a practice, an engaging action or event can momentarily light up our life, but it cannot order and orient it focally\u0026hellip; Through a practice we are able to accomplish what remains unattainable when aimed at in a series of individual decisions and acts\u0026rdquo; (207).\nHow are focal practices established? In pre-technological societies, they were often done so with some mythic purpose or backstory, showing how this particular practice enacts something we all know or desire to be true cosmically, for example as in the Eucharist, a practice established to commemorate not just a specific event but the cosmic reality that event signified: God giving himself for the world. Practices were established in the face of some obvious antagonist, like chaos (thinking, \u0026ldquo;if we but keep this practice it will keep chaos and disorder at bay\u0026rdquo;). Our antagonist today is the deadening effect of technology, but this antagonist is hard to see. It is the backdrop, the stage setting, not easily visible as a character itself. Unless we have seen its patterns and felt its debilitating effect on our lives, it will be hard to find energy to found focal practices in opposition to it. But if we have observed the \u0026ldquo;persuasiveness and consistency of its pattern\u0026rdquo;, we will be encouraged to engage in focal practices that restore depth and integrity to our lives.\nPractices, in their recurring and faithful nature, protect focal things from being subverted by technology and from being lost because of our own frailty or natural inconsistency. Practices remind us that focal goods, far from being delivered automatically whenever we engage in the practice, are hard-won, and all the more satisfying for remaining in the practice despite difficulty or long seasons without apparent advancement. And as Alisdair MacIntyre says, a practice always contains the notion of the goods it obtains, so the technological split between means and ends is healed\u0026mdash;the focal practice and focal good cannot be disentangled as with a machine and its product.\nIn sum, focal practices are essential to counteract the pattern of technology and to guard focal things from extinction. They come into being through either our explicit resolution or an implicit nurturing that becomes a solid custom. Our focal practices today will differ from those of our pre-technological ancestors. Theirs were social, public, and enshrined in buildings, public offices, roles, clothing, etc\u0026hellip; Ours are more humble, homely, scattered, and often more private. This is a limitation of focal practices that we need to examine if, as Borgmann thinks, they can be the ground for a more widespread reform of technology that reaches into the public sphere. And so we set the stage for the next chapter, which will begin to tie together the notion of focal practices with the \u0026ldquo;good life\u0026rdquo;, and how that pushes inevitably into politics.\n[Photo: breakfast at our table, by Jessica Lipps]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2016/01/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-23-focal-things-and-practices/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e The previous chapter took Nature as an intuitive source of helpful challenges to the technological paradigm. But Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s insight, spelled out in his concept of \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;, is that what is true about Nature can be explored in a more general fashion. Moreover, Borgmann actually thinks that technology, while it can be a challenge to what we find meaningful in life, for that very reason \u003cem\u003eheightens\u003c/em\u003e its beauty. We therefore don\u0026rsquo;t need to be pessimistic about its survival; we just need to pay attention to how and where we can cultivate focal things and practices despite the challenge that goes along with such effort.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 23, \"Focal Things and Practices\""},{"content":"In recent months, \u0026ldquo;race relations\u0026rdquo; has been in the news a lot here in America due to \u0026ldquo;racially-motivated violence\u0026rdquo;. We\u0026rsquo;ve seen videos of innocent black citizens gunned down by the police that is supposed to protect them. We\u0026rsquo;ve seen a community devastated by a terrorist attack that can only be described as pure, premeditated evil. We\u0026rsquo;ve seen numerous examples of peaceful protests turning ugly, with attendees being beaten, mocked, and abused by government representatives. As these events unfolded, I have for the most part been a spectator. What else could I be? To be sure, I\u0026rsquo;ve retweeted the requisite amount of condemnation, and penned my own 140-character expressions of grief, but this is a mere echo of a thought, too frail to stand even in aggregate against a tidal wave of injustice. And so for the most part I have remained silent, trying simply to fathom the extent of the twistedness we find ourselves in, and failing, or being distracted, even in that small effort.\nRecently, it occurred to me that there is something else I can do. Something that won\u0026rsquo;t fit in a tweet or be very popular. Something that might be long, hard to deal with, or uncomfortable to read. Something that may or may not connect with any audience. But there is something that can help me, at least, plumb more of the depths of the dark cancer that gnaws at the heart of potential reconciliation in our country. I can talk about my racism. I can talk about what part I play, or have played, in this drama that we\u0026rsquo;re so shamefully writing as a society.\n\u0026ldquo;Hold on a minute\u0026rdquo;, everyone who knows me will say. \u0026ldquo;Isn\u0026rsquo;t this just some kind of false humility, or publicity stunt, or exercise in link-baiting? You\u0026rsquo;re the last person I would call a racist!\u0026rdquo; And indeed, there is much to my credit, both ideologically and in my actions, with regard to love and respect for people of all races and persuasions. I live in San Francisco, arguably the least ideologically-racist city in America. I\u0026rsquo;m a software developer, working in a field that many like to think of as a meritocracy. I\u0026rsquo;m a fan of diversity, inclusion, and non-violence. I talk to everyone I meet on the street or in bars or restaurants with respect, regardless of their skin color or social position. I\u0026rsquo;m what many would consider a radical feminist, acknowledging the unjust system of male domination that has irrevocably shaped the workings of society since the beginnings of society (a system, I would argue, that has deeper and stronger roots even than racism). I lived in Kenya for almost a year, volunteering to help make the lives and prospects of African orphans better. I did my best to learn Swahili so as not to participate in the implicit colonial narrative of a white person in Africa. I became a vegetarian because the children I was with could not afford to eat meat. Ask any of my friends, and they\u0026rsquo;ll tell you that I\u0026rsquo;m an all-around bridge-building type of person. So in what crazy possible world would I be counted among \u0026ldquo;racists\u0026rdquo;?\nUnfortunately, that world is all too actual. Racism is not just about our beliefs, what we would claim, or even our conscious actions. It\u0026rsquo;s much more often implicit, pre-arranged; it\u0026rsquo;s in the air we breathe. The world comes to us racist. The structures of society are set up as positive feedback mechanisms, and those of us that benefit by being on the upward spiral can easily go through life without seeing how those benefits are often powered by some form of racism or sexism. This is just the way things are set up. Of course, these structures encourage narratives that can birth a more overt form of racism as well.\nI grew up in North-Central Texas, in a small town outside of Dallas. Neither of my parents were from Texas, and we didn\u0026rsquo;t move there until I was 6, so we didn\u0026rsquo;t feel very \u0026ldquo;Texan\u0026rdquo;, but I soon learned about the centuries-deep furrows that \u0026ldquo;race\u0026rdquo; had carved into the social soil. My Junior High and High School were pretty diverse, with (I think) less than 50% White students, and substantial Black and Hispanic populations. It was also highly segregated. Friendships did not easily cross racial boundaries, and while there must have been one or two, I can\u0026rsquo;t remember specifically any interracial romantic relationships. Neighborhoods were also fairly segregated. My neighborhood (predominantly White) bordered on another neighborhood (predominantly Black). I remember the first time I was driven to a house in that latter, poorer neighborhood. It was made obvious to me through what those around me were saying that this neighborhood was \u0026ldquo;worse\u0026rdquo;, that it was dangerous, and that our friends who lived there were surely only doing so because, as poor missionaries, they couldn\u0026rsquo;t afford to live in a \u0026ldquo;better\u0026rdquo; area. Why was the neighborhood worse and dangerous? There may not have been an explicit link, but it was described as being a \u0026ldquo;Black\u0026rdquo; neighborhood. As a result, I believe that my first racist feeling was one of fear. Black people were dangerous, and I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t go to this area on my own.\nAnd so, in my experience, Black people were talked about in general as a \u0026ldquo;they\u0026rdquo;. They were a \u0026ldquo;they\u0026rdquo; because we didn\u0026rsquo;t have Black friends, and it allowed us to lump all of these people together in our minds according to this one attribute that they shared: skin color. And again, because we didn\u0026rsquo;t bother to differentiate between this or that Black person (which we could have done by making friends with Black people, for example), many negative adjectives (\u0026ldquo;dangerous\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;low class\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;aggressive\u0026rdquo;) were taken to apply not just to this category of people, but back again to individuals. This is how a stereotype succeeds in its self-sustaining reaction: the two reagents (\u0026ldquo;white\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;black\u0026rdquo;) were close enough to combust, but not close enough to forestall a meltdown.\nIn Junior High, I made a friend on the school bus. We both played trumpet in band, and liked to read books, and we began to sit together on the way to school. He was Black, though, and I soon discovered the awkwardness of enjoying being with him on one hand, and then on the other hand listening to my White friends making fun of him behind his back. Some of it was normal kid stuff that I also suffered\u0026mdash;he was a \u0026ldquo;nerd\u0026rdquo;, and he had a funny last name that led to the kind of crude and cruel puns junior-highers are known for. I also had to deal with this kind of thing. But some of the mockery was about his appearance, specifically his \u0026ldquo;huge lips\u0026rdquo;, which was derogatory code for his being \u0026ldquo;really Black\u0026rdquo;. I\u0026rsquo;m deeply sad to say that, in the face of this kind of social pressure, I increasingly avoided him until we no longer spent any time together. It\u0026rsquo;s this kind of non-action, not any overt pro-action, that characterizes my racism, and much of the implicit racism in our culture. Did I personally make fun of him? No. I even said (feebly), \u0026ldquo;Hey, he\u0026rsquo;s actually pretty cool\u0026rdquo; one or two times. But at the end of the day, did I disturb the status quo for the sake of a promising geeky friendship? No. And so the train rolls on, and the wheels bite ever deeper into the grooves of the age-old carnival ride we wish we would end.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not just about staying quiet while my friends told racist jokes, or when they laughed about what some \u0026ldquo;crazy nigger\u0026rdquo; did, or when they viewed a Black woman as a totally different kind of sex object than a White woman. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t just how I contributed, because of my own sharp need to be accepted by my peers, to the endemic racism in our society. It was also what I missed out on! How impoverished was I, who could have experienced so many more kinds of relationship in life! But it\u0026rsquo;s not that simple. By the time you\u0026rsquo;re a teenager in a society like this, race-driven \u0026ldquo;culture\u0026rdquo; has shaped you just as much as latent ideas about race itself. For a few weeks in a row, my family went to a nearby Black church. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure why. Maybe (let\u0026rsquo;s be generous) we were moved by a desire to see the unity of the Church crossing racial boundaries. All I can remember is being terrified\u0026mdash;the only White kid in a sea of Black people, everyone looking and waving and Hallelujah-ing at me the whole time. I felt embarrassed both by their exuberance and then by my own cultural faux pas of not jumping and raising my hands in praise. Race aside, I found it impossible to connect with the culture of that place. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand or affirm the constant shouting and hand-waving. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand or affirm the expensive suits and showy preaching. And so on. To an introverted geek, it was a cultural nightmare.\nReflecting now, it may also have been exactly the kind of thing that my 14-year-old self needed in order to become a less withdrawn, lonely, and isolated kid, but that ship has sailed. My point is simply that living in a segregated society from early on, and the early whispered conversations about Black people as a \u0026ldquo;they\u0026rdquo;, set in motion a force very much like compound interest. By the time I was 14, Black culture was already so ineffable and threatening to me given my own cultural background that from that point on I haven\u0026rsquo;t really been able to make any Black (that is, culturally \u0026ldquo;Black\u0026rdquo;) friends. \u0026ldquo;I just don\u0026rsquo;t get the culture\u0026rdquo;, I\u0026rsquo;ve heard myself say in the past\u0026mdash;this coming from a person who\u0026rsquo;s traveled the world, lived abroad, and studied many cultures, including in Africa!\nBut you know, society has conspired to keep me from having to really look at that head-on. I left Texas before my Senior year of High School, and headed to Florida, where the race dialogue was different (and I spoke Spanish, so no problems there). Then on to sunny, perfect, California for college and most of the rest of my subsequent story. I now live in San Francisco, the techno-Mecca where as a society we\u0026rsquo;ve gotten rid of everyone, like most Black people, who can\u0026rsquo;t afford to \u0026ldquo;pay to play\u0026rdquo; (except for the homeless, who from many citizens\u0026rsquo; perspectives just haven\u0026rsquo;t had the good grace to shuffle on).\nIt was only recently, when White-on-Black police brutality and terrorism began to surface in the news, that I was turned on to a stream of different voices. Reading the #drivingwhileblack tweets, for example, helped me begin to understand the basic experience of life from a Black perspective, and how different that is from my own. Ultimately, it motivated me to share my own small, ugly story. Just a drop in an overwhelming sea of ugliness, to be sure, but a drop nonetheless. I have no illusions that these confessions or reflections are valid penance, or that penance is even what is necessary. Nor am I writing out of \u0026ldquo;White man\u0026rsquo;s guilt\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;White man\u0026rsquo;s shame\u0026rdquo;. Nor do I deny that I have been bullied by Black kids while growing up, in situations where it seemed to have been at least partially racially motivated. Racism, as I\u0026rsquo;ve pointed out many times, is a systemic as well as a personal issue, and it emphatically must be spoken to and about on that systemic level. But I think we have the best chance of facing the systemic issues effectively when we\u0026rsquo;ve already faced them in our own hearts, and our own bodies, and our own relationships. 20 years ago, with my Black friend on the school bus, I was not able to \u0026ldquo;speak truth to power\u0026rdquo;. Today, I might be one small step closer.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t think the conversation in America should be about whether so-and-so is racist, or even asking the question, \u0026ldquo;am I racist?\u0026rdquo; I think we need to readily acknowledge that we are racist, and quickly move on from there to ask the harder, more revealing, and more powerful question: \u0026ldquo;what does my racism look like?\u0026rdquo;. We need to go from denial to doubt to admission to finally getting our hands dirty with the realities of our individual racisms. The amazing thing is, if we can deal with this, I think we\u0026rsquo;ll be able to see more clearly how racism is just one species of otherism, the fundamental pushing-away and dehumanizing of those who aren\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;like me\u0026rdquo;. I think we\u0026rsquo;ll be more willing to see, then, our own (and society\u0026rsquo;s) fundamental misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, etc\u0026hellip; I sincerely hope that one day I can live in a world where my own brokenness (as I\u0026rsquo;ve described above), or the brokenness of the system, or even the brokenness of someone who is doing me wrong, don\u0026rsquo;t mean that I\u0026rsquo;m forever closed to the way someone else sees the world. In that scenario, we all lose.\nI am not here to heap guilt and condemnation on someone who\u0026rsquo;s not ready to acknowledge what lies in their own heart. I am here to engage in an act of public confession, hoping that it will lead, not to others\u0026rsquo; similar confessions, but to my own redemption. What I\u0026rsquo;m doing now takes infinitely less courage than to face the murderer of one\u0026rsquo;s family and say, \u0026ldquo;Since Jesus forgives you, I also forgive you\u0026rdquo;. But I hope it is an incremental step in my own journey of becoming more courageous to act and speak in situations where an individual or a system threatens the personhood of one of my fellow human beings, especially when that fellow human being is difficult for me to understand or to love.\nThe antidote to my\u0026mdash;indeed, our\u0026mdash;racisms is not for us to become \u0026ldquo;color-blind\u0026rdquo;, but rather for us to hear the stories, and acknowledge the realities, of people of all colors, to allow their Otherness to penetrate through the scars of our own wounds and suffocate the worms of fear, guilt, and shame, fertilizing with their decomposition a new soil in our hearts. Only then will we see others with respect, and only then will we be able to be something more than a land void of racism. Then will we enter the promised land that Dr. King foresaw, a land defined not by the absence of hate but by the presence of love.\n[Photo: a street in the author\u0026rsquo;s Texas hometown] [Edit: Some discussion is happening on Hacker News]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2015/07/this-is-my-racism/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn recent months, \u0026ldquo;race relations\u0026rdquo; has been in the news a lot here in America due to \u0026ldquo;racially-motivated violence\u0026rdquo;. We\u0026rsquo;ve seen videos of innocent black citizens gunned down by the police that is supposed to protect them. We\u0026rsquo;ve seen a community devastated by a terrorist attack that can only be described as pure, premeditated evil. We\u0026rsquo;ve seen numerous examples of peaceful protests turning ugly, with attendees being beaten, mocked, and abused by government representatives. As these events unfolded, I have for the most part been a spectator. What else could I be? To be sure, I\u0026rsquo;ve retweeted the requisite amount of condemnation, and penned my own 140-character expressions of grief, but this is a mere echo of a thought, too frail to stand even in aggregate against a tidal wave of injustice. And so for the most part I have remained silent, trying simply to fathom the extent of the twistedness we find ourselves in, and failing, or being distracted, even in that small effort.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"This Is My Racism"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThis chapter is a sort of case study or example of something we might start deictic discourse (the subject of the last chapter) about in a fruitful way. Borgmann thinks that, in North America, nature (specifically as \u0026ldquo;wilderness\u0026rdquo;) is possibly the most obvious place to start looking for focal concerns to discourse deictically about. We\u0026rsquo;ll first start with a brief history of attitudes towards North American wilderness, then discuss previous attempts by conservationists to involve the wilderness in public discourse, and finally explore a new understanding of wilderness from within the context of our technological society.\nThe initial view of wilderness was that, being wild, it was a terrifying place. It was something that was not good until it could be tamed into a garden. And early European settlers (or invaders, however you see them), after a brief flirtation with the idea of the New World as a beautiful Eden, eventually saw it as an empty land, waiting to be wrought into shape. Of course, the land wasn\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;empty\u0026rdquo; by any stretch, nor was it unsettled or uncultivated; civilizations and centuries-long relationships with land already existed, in the form of the Native Americans.\nAnyway, while this view of wilderness as a chaotic void waiting to be tamed was pre-technological, it was certainly amenable to the technological approach once that came on the scene. The technological paradigm sees nature as something to be shaped, something to be used as a mere means, as a raw material. And this indeed became the mission, not so much of the pioneers, but of early American industry: to subdue the wilderness and turn it into something that could become part of the production of goods that benefit humankind. Whereas in the Old World there were much more long-lasting ties between humans and the lands they dwelled in, this more instrumental view of nature in the New World did not encourage such ties.\nOn the other hand, in the Old World, nature was much more often cultivated than not; relatively speaking, there was much less true \u0026ldquo;wilderness\u0026rdquo; left in Europe. Thus the American wilderness can be seen as providing a unique challenge to the technological paradigm, in two senses: first, it can be a challenge within the framework. In this sense, wilderness is something to be overcome by technology. It might prove at first unyielding to technology; for a long time we lacked the ability to blast holes through mountains, for example. Technology overcomes this challenge through the outworking of the paradigm, applying scientific insight with the aim of deconstructing natural resources for us. Second, wilderness can be a challenge to the framework of technology itself, for example by highlighting necessary conversations about domination vs respect and conservation. If the technological paradigm in and of itself must take a dominating stance to nature, then the existence of the wilderness could be seen as a counterexample to that paradigm.\nTechnology does have within itself some resources to meet this kind of challenge, however. Recreation and human enjoyment is one of the avowed ends of technology, and it could be argued (from within that framework) that we should therefore preserve some wilderness so that humans have access to that particular kind of pleasure. Borgmann points out that this kind of argumentation is not what he means by deictic discourse, and thus ultimately not the kind of talk that brings the real issues to the fore. When conservationists use these kinds of arguments (arguments according to practical rationality), they give up the possibility of speaking movingly and eloquently about this thing (the wilderness) that has so deeply affected them.\nIn other words, feeling the need to give a justification for conservation gives the game away before it starts, because it is then always an open move to rank the wilderness against some other supposed human benefit (like safety, or convenience). It fails to disclose nature to us as something other, something that has value in its own right outside of human instrumentality. As Borgmann says, \u0026ldquo;Discourse of nature can hope finally to be successful only if it abandons the conceptual outposts and bulwarks and allows nature to speak directly and fully in one\u0026rsquo;s words\u0026rdquo; (187).\nEarly analyses of technology vis a vis nature talked a lot about the intrusiveness of technology. The loud and brash steam locomotive, for example. There was a sense that technology was constructing a \u0026ldquo;machine in the garden\u0026rdquo;, so to speak. More recently, as Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s book is trying to show, technology has been shaping our lives more concretely precisely when it is less intrusive, precisely when it is the hidden backdrop of all our actions. A city suburb, for example, is a technological device through and through: a conglomeration of commodities procured by hidden machinery. Thus, \u0026ldquo;the advanced technology setting is characterized not by the violence of machinery but by the disengagement and distraction of commodities\u0026rdquo; (189). The balance has shifted. Now nature is the island, the garden in the machine, not the other way around.\nOn one hand, this feels defeating. Has nature been fully conquered? Borgmann wants us to take a more positive view: these islands can be sources of challenge for the technological paradigm, sacred spaces where technological distractions can be (in virtue of their conspicuous absence) be seen for what they are, viscerally. Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s not saying that we should turn nature into religion or that it\u0026rsquo;s the only way of accessing the divine, but it is a clear starting point for this kind of thing.\nHow does this work, exactly? How does nature have the possibility of bringing these issues up for us in this \u0026ldquo;sacred\u0026rdquo; way? We could look at some oppositions between life in technology and life in the wilderness.\nTechnology annihilates time and space (in bringing everything and everyone closer in both dimensions, until space has no more meaning). Wilderness restores it to us. The sun is our compass, the land delineates clear boundaries with its physical features. A day in the wilderness is marked by the rhythm of the various activities necessary for survival. Technology bespeaks human creation; nature speaks to us as an another, outside the human world. It speaks as something in its own right, which devices never do. Technology takes a shallow view of objects, and turns them into commodities. Nature is eminently deep. An animal in the eyes of technology is a machine that produces such-and-such amount of meat and other materials that are worthless and must be discarded. In the wilderness, the animal is a focus of nature, a distillation of the land itself and the bounty that it can support. In the wilderness, we are not consumers or conquerors, but engaged guests. We can, in a different way even than the animal, gather and focus (like a prism) the beauty and meaning around us. Of course, these days the wilderness is always bounded by or mediated by technology. We drive to the mountains. We see jet contrails while backpacking. These slight intrusions remind us of the troubled relationship between nature and technology. They call us to be less egotistical, less anthropocentric in our treatment of the world. We also recognize that in our wilderness expeditions nowadays, it is the blessings of technology that keep us warm, well-fed, and safe. Our technical clothing, footgear, lightweight tents, dried food, and so on. But wait a minute! Is it not contradictory with the spirit of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s analysis to want to enter the wild in safety and ease? Maybe it is to some extent, but Borgmann acquiesces that it would be foolish to court death in the wilderness. We have to have a mature recognition that the need to risk our lives in nature has been done away with. Still, this doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that we can simply let the wilderness vanish; in fact the opposite is even more true. Our position of technological safety in the wilderness highlights nature\u0026rsquo;s fragility and need for protection. In a way, we as the children of nature have grown up, and are now \u0026ldquo;old\u0026rdquo; enough (technologically advanced enough) to see the frailty and complexity of our parents. This situation should move us to compassion and care, not extortion or abandonment.\nIn other words, the wilderness can help us acknowledge our need for technology, the fact that we fundamentally rely on it now, and there\u0026rsquo;s no going back. At the same time, nature helps us acknowledge our need to limit technology. On its own, technology neither needs nor wants limits, but engagement with focal things (or practices) like nature can help us outline that more mature and humble engagement with technology. Focal things are not just forlorn, pre-technological bygones; they can have a new and deep splendor, even in the technological world, so long as we heed their call to a mature and appropriately limited technology.\nIn the next chapter, we\u0026rsquo;ll dig even more deeply into the concept of \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;, and move from nature to a number of other examples and how they might be patterns for us to move forward and find yet more in our own lives, about which we can speak deictically and effectively.\n[Header photo by the author; Joshua Tree in 2009]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2015/07/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-22-the-challenge-of-nature/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e This chapter is a sort of case study or example of something we might start deictic discourse (the subject of the last chapter) about in a fruitful way. Borgmann thinks that, in North America, nature (specifically as \u0026ldquo;wilderness\u0026rdquo;) is possibly the most obvious place to start looking for focal concerns to discourse deictically about. We\u0026rsquo;ll first start with a brief history of attitudes towards North American wilderness, then discuss previous attempts by conservationists to involve the wilderness in public discourse, and finally explore a new understanding of wilderness from within the context of our technological society.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 22, \"The Challenge of Nature\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nWe turn now to the chapter wherein Borgmann finally goes into detail about the kind of discourse he actually thinks can have an impact on the current state of technological society: deictic discourse. Deictic discourse is discourse guided by specific focal concerns. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to know exactly what that means, or why it\u0026rsquo;s especially effective, and this chapter unpacks its relevance.\nThe context for these considerations is our earlier discussion about society and the good life. The liberal democratic tradition thinks it has left the question of the good life open in a good and fruitful way, but Borgmann would say that it\u0026rsquo;s not actually as open as it looks. In fact, we live our lives according to a relatively constrained set of possibilities defined by the technological paradigm. Recognizing that this is the case is of course the first step to doing something about it. But this recognition and any ensuing conversation is actually a pretty rare thing. How come? Well, as a society, the only real public conversations left to us are in the realm of politics, and thanks to the ideals of liberal democracy, political debate is kept fastidiously free of any real moral discussion (for reasons enumerated in previous chapters, e.g., that questions of the good life are to be answered by individuals and not society). The irony is, again, that these questions haven\u0026rsquo;t been left open; we have chosen a definite way of life as a society, only we\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to acknowledge it as part of our public discourse. This is part and parcel of \u0026ldquo;the catastrophe of liberalism which overturns the traditional order without being able to institute a new one\u0026rdquo; (170).\nIt is deictic discourse that re-opens the possibility of that conversation. Crucially, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t strive for pure philosophical cogency (and by cogency Borgmann has in mind a style of argument that compels assent), but rather \u0026ldquo;points\u0026rdquo; (hence the term deictic from Greek deiknumi) to something in our common experience which might be able to make a claim on us in virtue of its focal nature (i.e., in virtue of its capacity for sustaining and orienting human experience and significance).\nBut hold on a minute. Is it really true that there is no \u0026ldquo;moral\u0026rdquo; discourse in our political debates? In a sense, Borgmann allows that there is. There are discussions about responsibility, honesty, accountability, and fair dealing, but by and large these fall within and are defined by the technological paradigm, and the explicit and banal goal of maximizing resources and profit. In that context, yes, it is objectionable for an operator to exhibit greed\u0026mdash;but the moral force of our reprehension has little to do with the inherent moral vice of greed and more to do with the inappropriateness of that action in hindering the smooth working of the economic engine. Or occasionally some genuinely \u0026ldquo;moral\u0026rdquo; movements might spring up from political or religious motivations, but these usually end up simply promoting the expansion of technology to population segments that don\u0026rsquo;t have it yet. Finally, there are sometimes \u0026ldquo;purely moral\u0026rdquo; discussions that have to do with the death penalty, abortion, pornography, etc\u0026hellip;, which are increasingly incomprehensible by a technological society and often just do a lot of harm.\nThe one thing that\u0026rsquo;s never actually on the table is the explicit goal of technology, namely consumption. Consumption comes pre-justified (unless it harms someone else). Someone might be considered frivolous for buying a car in a mid-life crisis, but it would be \u0026ldquo;his business to spend his money how he wants\u0026rdquo;, not an opening for an ethical conversation. But this sweeps off the table whole areas of life that used to be squarely within the field of ethics! Now these issues just get a free ride, without any possibility of moral critique.\nConsumption, of course goes against a positive notion of freedom, i.e., the promise of technology for self-improvement, which is ironically removed even further from us when the self is realized via consumption. Borgmann believes that, deep down, we all feel this: \u0026ldquo;I believe that what shows itself in the vacuity or arbitrariness of most private moral discourse is neither ethical pluralism nor ethical chaos but complicity with technology\u0026rdquo; (173). In other words, what we consider with pride to be a good sort of liberal ethical pluralism is in fact a very definite, non-pluralistic kind of morality based around consumption. What we need is for this fact to take center stage as a moral issue.\nFor any moral issue to be genuinely discussed will be hard, however, because of the ghosts of dogmatistm, bigotry, superiority, etc\u0026hellip;, not to mention that traditional morality holds no sway with modern society. But the most difficult aspect will be that deictic discourse lacks, according to Borgmann, \u0026ldquo;cogency and procurability\u0026rdquo;, which are now the standard requirements of any discourse, presumably because of the privileged place of science in explanation (never mind that people don\u0026rsquo;t actually understand how science works). Borgmann points out that this is actually a feature of deictic discourse, but in the context of our modern expectations of cogency, it is a challenge nonetheless.\nBut why be so quick to give up cogency? Why deictic discourse and not some other more airtight form of philosophical reasoning? As Borgmann points out, there\u0026rsquo;s a long history of philosophers trying to start with little and end with much, but just as in real life, this never actually works. Usually it turns out that stronger assumptions were smuggled in somewhere, and the dramatic conclusion is mere philosophical legerdemain, rather than a genuine proof. For example, JS Mill claims that, in most cases, focusing on one\u0026rsquo;s own happiness will lead to the greatest good for the most people (here the weak starting assumption is \u0026ldquo;just focus on your own happiness\u0026rdquo;, and the strong conclusion is that this will set society as a whole on the best path). Pascal\u0026rsquo;s Wager would be another example (it\u0026rsquo;s better to assume that God exists because that\u0026rsquo;s the bet that\u0026rsquo;s most likely to pay off, therefore\u0026hellip;. God exists?). Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s point is that in each case the argument compels not because of its rational character but because of the strong, hidden starting assumptions, which are precisely where deictic discourse begins and ends. Only, it does so honestly, without pretending to be something other than it is.\nUltimately, if there\u0026rsquo;s going to be a successful critique of the social malaise inculcated by technology, it has to come through deictic discourse. So what could its impetus be? Borgmann says that it needs to begin with the inner experience of something of ultimate significance (i.e., a focal thing or practice) that\u0026rsquo;s threatened by technology, and it must be fueled by regard for our fellow human beings. What, then, are some of the characteristics of this kind of discourse? It has three descriptors:\nIt is enthusiastic: it is filled by the greatness of the thing that I\u0026rsquo;m disclosing, its potential for solace and delight. In other words, it springs out of a real and genuine (even transcendent) encounter with something. It is sympathetic: it is tempered by concern for the integrity of the person I\u0026rsquo;m talking with. It cares more about that person than their allegiance to what I\u0026rsquo;m disclosing. In fact, I\u0026rsquo;ll prevent their agreement if it looks like it would injure their agency. It is tolerant: it recognizes that violence or aggression will automatically nullify what I\u0026rsquo;m trying to disclose, and cause more harm than good. Violence and force are never worth it. This is why Borgmann says that deictic discourse lacks cogency in a positive way: it simply discloses the good as an opportunity, as an open door that one may walk through, and the land through which I have experienced myself to be good. Deictic discourse is a witnessing or appealing kind of communication, not an expository kind of communication, or even a persuasive/rhetorical kind of communication. Borgmann says that this kind of discourse is what our democracy needs (and I heartily agree). Of course, liberal democracy must be opposed to deictic discourse since deictic discourse presumes to communicate a concrete aspect of the good life, and liberal democracy is committed to leaving the good life \u0026ldquo;open\u0026rdquo;. In other words, it believes that it has created an environment of true tolerance. The reply is as before: liberal democracy only claims to have left the good life open; in fact it hasn\u0026rsquo;t done so: \u0026ldquo;The question of the good life, as said before, cannot be left open. What remains open is not whether but how we will answer it.\u0026rdquo;\nDeictic discourse has two modes, corresponding to its character of witnessing on one hand and appealing on the other. As a witness\u0026rsquo;s testimony, it becomes poetry. And as a strong appeal, it becomes politics. In fact, deictic discourse must be the ground of all real political action. Apodeictic discourse (the kind that comes by scientific or philosophical reasoning) can demand assent, but only in the narrow sphere of its own definitions. To connect it to action there must always be a deictic component. Deictic explanation is the only kind that can fill the is-ought gap.\nA final critique of deictic discourse is that what is a focal thing or practice for me, what is of ultimate concern for me, is merely my imposition of significance. This is supposed to disqualify my appeal from generality, but Borgmann doesn\u0026rsquo;t dodge the critique. It is true, and irrefutably so. On the other hand, it\u0026rsquo;s inconsequential. Deictic discourse doesn\u0026rsquo;t aim to show that something is generally significant, or universally true. Its strength comes from precisely the opposite: it is grounded in the dirt of my own specific experience. It is unapologetically personal; it puts the question of significance to the interlocutor in a way that raises the question of her own experience as well. It says, in sum, \u0026ldquo;come and see\u0026rdquo;.\nAnd thus ends Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s powerful explanation of deictic discourse. To drive the point home further, in the next chapter he will give an example of something about which deictic discourse is eminently suited: our natural environment and our relationship to it.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2015/07/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-21-deictic-discourse/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e We turn now to the chapter wherein Borgmann finally goes into detail about the kind of discourse he actually thinks can have an impact on the current state of technological society: \u003cem\u003edeictic discourse\u003c/em\u003e. Deictic discourse is discourse guided by specific focal concerns. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to know exactly what that means, or why it\u0026rsquo;s especially effective, and this chapter unpacks its relevance.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 21, \"Deictic Discourse\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThis is the first chapter of Part 3, \u0026ldquo;The Reform of Technology\u0026rdquo;, where we are going to consider how focal things and practices can amount to a solid reform of technology. We have some difficult topics to cover: how have attempts already been made to reform technology? How can we use language, itself patterned and conditioned by technology, to speak of reform? What exactly are these vaunted \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;? If reform is even possible, how can it be extended to the national/international dialogue? Ultimately the goal here is to repair society to that it can recover and re-appropriate the initial hopes and promises of technology.\nSpecifically, Chapter 20 examines proposals for technology\u0026rsquo;s reform that are already on the table. True understanding is always a prerequisite to effective reform, and that has been the goal of TCCL so far. We also need to understand the space of possibilities for reform. Many people feel the need for a reform of technology, but the pains and frustrations that prompt this desire are various, and flow out of different analyses of the technological situation. Ultimately, the best reform will flow out of the best analysis of technology: if the analysis is superficial, so too will the reform be.\nThe main distinction Borgmann wants to make is between reforms within the paradigm of technology and reforms of the paradigm. Ultimately, he argues that what we need is the latter, but most of the reforms on offer fall into the former category, so that is what takes up most of the discussion for this chapter.\nWe\u0026rsquo;ve already met various suggestions for reform along the way in TCCL, in Part 2. Typically these take the form of calling for a return to the founding promise and hope of technology to make us better and to create the possibility of general liberty and prosperity. One example of such a call for reform is to \u0026ldquo;raise the value question\u0026rdquo; (as we discussed in Chapter 13), i.e., to bring to light society\u0026rsquo;s fundamental values and suggest that we examine them. The problem here is that technology is, on this picture, seen as a mere means, and so is ultimately compatible with whatever values society ends up adopting. The Device Paradigm can survive that kind of shift, and will continue to work itself out in the debilitating labor/leisure split we talked about in the last few chapters.\nOther thinkers are disturbed by the kind of life technology fosters, but again call for change within the paradigm. The problem, it is thought, is that the machines aren\u0026rsquo;t doing their jobs well enough, or their value is not distributed equally enough. We need better machines, better software, and above all more human involvement and participation in the processes that lead to technical artifacts. While laudable and reasonable, these sentiments again don\u0026rsquo;t take the repatterning of technology as seriously as necessary. As we saw in Chapter 15 and Chapter 16, technology is too stable to respond to issues of social justice that don\u0026rsquo;t themselves threaten the paradigm, and is quite happy, perfectly-designed machines and all, to coexist with a variety of negative social arrangements.\nAnother large class of reform wants to see us take technology as a genuinely new development in human history, and to find meaning and inspiration in technology itself. Borgmann sees this brand of thinking as flowing out of \u0026ldquo;functionalism\u0026rdquo;, which we met without calling it such in Chapter 11 (in the guise of the idea that splitting things into their component \u0026ldquo;form\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;function\u0026rdquo; gives us insight about a thing\u0026rsquo;s essence; it is truly the \u0026ldquo;function\u0026rdquo; that matters). On this view what we need to do is to treat technological marvels as feats of human inspiration and genius, the way we see the great cathedrals of Medieval Europe. We should find in ourselves the same awe and sense of grandeur when contemplating the scope and intricacy of a particle accelerator as we do when viewing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.\nBorgmann argues that we will struggle in vain to achieve this, however, since the cathedrals of Europe were not just feats of construction and artistry; they presented and embodied a unified Medieval vision of the world that was accessible to all (even though the finer points of theology and art were not). The cathedrals formed a part of community ritual, and were present during every mode and season of life, through birth, death, and all kinds of other celebrations. Borgmann is not arguing for the Medieval view of the world, simply pointing out that cathedrals had a \u0026ldquo;comprehensiveness, unity, accessibility, and enactment\u0026rdquo; (160) to them that modern technological wonders don\u0026rsquo;t.\nBorgmann has something similar to say (and at length) about Robert Pirsig\u0026rsquo;s classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The book\u0026rsquo;s main thrust is that careful attention to technological objects (like a motorcycle) can be as spiritually rewarding as as following traditional disciplines or contemplating natural objects. Ultimately Borgmann is just not convinced, and not least for the reason that the Device Paradigm is rendering our ability to truly understand even motorcycles obsolete. With the trend towards more complex machinery and simpler surfaces, we are rapidly departing the era where a motorcyclist might be able to truly understand the bike, tune it, repair it and so forth. What does it mean to contemplate an iPhone? We can\u0026rsquo;t take it apart, we can\u0026rsquo;t fiddle with it, we can\u0026rsquo;t get to know it, we can\u0026rsquo;t truly make it our own. All we have access to is the shiny surface and what developers are able to do with the predetermined APIs.\nThere are yet other types of reforms within the paradigm of technology, some of which are more mundane. We tacitly ask for reform whenever we want our software or our medicine to do a better job for us. But these \u0026ldquo;piecemeal\u0026rdquo; reforms are certainly without much in the way of insight. This is true for a number of reasons, but Borgmann calls out one in particular: it\u0026rsquo;s hard for technology to draw the line between serious contribution to humanity and frivolity or banality. But even if we could make this distinction, it\u0026rsquo;s not easy to see how technology could respond with its own resources, or whether a technological solution is even appropriate for the \u0026ldquo;serious\u0026rdquo; problems. As Borgmann says:\nAssuming that frequent meals at fast food outlets are frivolous, should one oppose them, knowing that the burden of home-cooked meals will fall disproportionately on women? \u0026hellip; Finally, there are unquestionably serious problems such as lung cancer and acid rain, for which, it would seem, we should try to find a technological fix by all available means. But these problems spring largely from frivolous consumption [smoking, mass production of unnecessary goods], and is it not more reasonable to prevent them from arising than to fix them technologically? (164)\nIn short, we can look at problems from either a technological or a social point of view, and we have for a long time been using only the first perspective, assuming that the right or best solution is technological. (This is certainly the case where I live in San Francisco, where social arrangements are constantly being disrupted by technological solutions to what are arguably social problems).\nOne stream of technological reform, what Borgmann dubs the \u0026ldquo;appropriate technology\u0026rdquo; movement, does acknowledge social reality to an extent. It is aware, for example, that simply dropping technological solutions on \u0026ldquo;third world\u0026rdquo; communities who have not yet had any history with technology can backfire in harmful ways. Or Ivan Tillich can talk about a \u0026ldquo;modern society of responsibly limited tools\u0026rdquo;, having in mind the absolutely admirable goal of inspiring society to consider acting within limits, and patterning our devices after that philosophy.\nBut ultimately, all these proposals of reform within the paradigm of technology don\u0026rsquo;t go deep enough. What we need is a reform of the paradigm itself. For Borgmann, this means that technology must be related to a \u0026ldquo;center\u0026rdquo;, instead of occupying that position de facto. By \u0026ldquo;center\u0026rdquo;, I think Borgmann has in mind a collection of things and practices that orient and sustain our lives, what he calls \u0026ldquo;focal concerns\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;. Technology must be reformed so that it is arranged around those concerns, rather than occupying the center itself (and thereby eventually replacing those concerns with simulated and ultimately non-existent versions of them).\nBut how are we even to talk validly about these \u0026ldquo;focal concerns\u0026rdquo;? As we saw in our discussion of liberal democracy in Chapter 14, political discourse is set up in such a way that conversations about things of ultimate concern are out of bounds as topics of genuine debate. Borgmann will address how we might reclaim the validity of such discussions in the next chapter, \u0026ldquo;Deictic Discourse\u0026rdquo;.\nPhoto credit: Jessica Lipps 2015 (Succulent Clippings)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2015/03/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-20-the-possibilities-of-reform/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e This is the first chapter of Part 3, \u0026ldquo;The Reform of Technology\u0026rdquo;, where we are going to consider how focal things and practices can amount to a solid reform of technology. We have some difficult topics to cover: how have attempts already been made to reform technology? How can we use language, itself patterned and conditioned by technology, to speak of reform? What exactly are these vaunted \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;? If reform is even possible, how can it be extended to the national/international dialogue? Ultimately the goal here is to repair society to that it can recover and re-appropriate the initial hopes and promises of technology.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 20, \"The Possibilities of Reform\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThe point of this last chapter of Part 2 is to explore how \u0026ldquo;stable\u0026rdquo; the technological condition is on its own. We need to address this question because we\u0026rsquo;ve established that the technological condition is in need of reform. But if the whole thing isn\u0026rsquo;t very stable to begin with, then reform/revolution is easy: we simply wait for technological culture to fall apart on its own. In fact, many critics of technology take essentially this view\u0026mdash;they believe technology is inherently unstable or has self-defeating tendencies. Borgmann disagrees with this assessment. His view is that technology has the resources within itself to solve whatever problems confront it, even the internal problems. The way that it will solve these problems is by continuing to extend the Device Paradigm into new areas, until it encompasses the whole of existence. Thus it is not a matter of technology \u0026ldquo;running out of steam\u0026rdquo; (pun intended), except accidentally or incidentally; it\u0026rsquo;s a matter of being clear about what a fully-technologized reality looks like so that we can attempt the necessary reform before it gets to that point. And that reform can\u0026rsquo;t be implemented if we misjudge the strength of the technological position.\nThis is the problem with many critiques of technology, Borgmann says, especially ones that begin with claims in the realm of ethics or morality. It becomes apparent in the course of argument that the proponents of technology have sufficient ways to reanalyze or respond to traditional morality, and so the critic has to retreat to saying, \u0026ldquo;well, that whole situation is not sustainable, you\u0026rsquo;ll see, it will fall apart one day\u0026rdquo; (Borgmann calls this the \u0026ldquo;unwarranted pessimism of the optimists\u0026rdquo; (145)). And indeed their pessimism seems unwarranted; however much our reality is reshaped by technology, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t appear to be falling apart of its own accord, though the traditionalists\u0026rsquo; fears are indeed being realized. The most common claim about technology\u0026rsquo;s self-defeating character has to do with the ultimate limiting of resources. Critics argue that technology\u0026rsquo;s pace has only been sustained because we have not encountered an upper bound to the resources the technological engine needs to consume in order to continue producing new kinds of devices and commodities. But of course we will be running into that limit soon (and have already begun to feel the pinch more in the 30 years since Borgmann wrote, for example with oil). This will make the graph of technology\u0026rsquo;s effects look like an S-curve; innovation will eventually peter out.\nThis criticism is ultimately naive, though, because it doesn\u0026rsquo;t reflect solidly enough on the Device Paradigm. The paradigm has simply to be extended in a more universal manner, and the resource problem disappears. Once we begin to look at the Earth itself as a device (\u0026ldquo;Spaceship Earth\u0026rdquo;), we will look beyond the device to find the necessary resources to fuel the device. The challenges in doing so are \u0026ldquo;merely\u0026rdquo; technical, and surely the kind of challenges that technology is in a position to solve. Even the \u0026ldquo;political\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;moral\u0026rdquo; issues disappear once everyone is lined up behind this framework. The amount of time it took for us to go from total oblivion with regard to climate change or other negative effects of technology to radical awareness and action is astonishingly small (recognizing the fact that some powerful parties still refuse to acknowledge the issues). We\u0026rsquo;ve had this change of heart as a planet not because we\u0026rsquo;ve decided to curb our consumption in order to respect the natural limits set before us, but because we\u0026rsquo;ll run out of fuel and stall if we don\u0026rsquo;t take care. The moment we find a new source of energy to mine, we\u0026rsquo;ll proceed as before, with no greater permanent insight.\nThe deeper question in all this, of course, is: what does it mean for us to live in a device, a \u0026ldquo;ship\u0026rdquo; that requires \u0026ldquo;fuel\u0026rdquo;, floating in a vast, endless sea, rather than a familiar home, a mother, or any other of the more local conceptions of our planet? How does that alter our understanding of our own existence? How does it alter our respect for life for its own sake? And so on.\nUltimately, if the technological paradigm goes unchallenged, Borgmann believes the following situation will obtain:\nWe will reach a \u0026ldquo;physically homeostatic equilibrium\u0026rdquo;, first for the technologized nations then eventually everyone. In other words, change and disruption will be a thing of the past. The \u0026ldquo;availability\u0026rdquo; of technology will be made to encompass our entire experience, so that everything is safe, secure, reliable, ubiquitous, instant, easy, and so forth. We will experience continued scientific discovery within whatever physical limits we\u0026rsquo;ve reached. After that, we will still have a limitless variation of commodities, not least of which will be around entertainment, which can mine culture (and via feedback, itself) in a self-perpetuating fashion ad infinitum. Sound banal and dulling? The proponent of technology has to say that this picture isn\u0026rsquo;t getting imaginative enough about the possibilities of further technological developments. \u0026ldquo;Just wait!\u0026rdquo; she says, with regard to the upcoming \u0026ldquo;microelectronic revolution\u0026rdquo;. (Well, 30 years have passed, and we\u0026rsquo;re perhaps just now entering into the season that visionaries had in mind when they talked about the \u0026ldquo;microelectronic revolution\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;what we would now perhaps call the \u0026ldquo;Internet of Things\u0026rdquo;). A fanciful blurb from Newsweek (when Borgmann was writing):\nWelcome! Always glad to show someone from the early 80s around the place. The biggest change, of course, is the smart machines\u0026mdash;they\u0026rsquo;re all around us.\nIt goes on to describe the various ways that \u0026ldquo;smart\u0026rdquo; devices around the home will make our lives easier and richer. You\u0026rsquo;d be familiar with all the examples: voice-controlled TVs and lights, kitchen appliances that mix cocktails perfectly, smart phone systems that know whom to screen, doors we unlock with our voice or fingerprint, etc\u0026hellip; The question Borgmann wants to ask about this rhetoric is, \u0026ldquo;is this it?\u0026rdquo; Technology was initially propounded with such magnificent promise of lives enriched beyond measure, full of all the things that ultimately make existence significant. Has the promise been reduced to robotic mixologists and other devices that save us from the minor inconvenience of dealing with tasks and people? Perhaps not: there are still some authors, like Daniel Bell, who see technology as truly benefiting culture, making us all \u0026ldquo;more literate and educated\u0026rdquo;, as well as \u0026ldquo;culturally and politically attentive\u0026rdquo;. There are also of course all the \u0026ldquo;negative\u0026rdquo; benefits of technology, things like freedom from disease and so forth. But Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s main point is this: we have all either stopped caring about the deeper promises of technology, or not come to grips with the fact that those promises have not been realized, but have been co-opted by an endless progression of entertaining but meaningless paraphernalia. The promise of technology has been tied too strongly to the pattern of technology (the Device Paradigm). Can we recover the powerful vision (that spurred on technology\u0026rsquo;s early drivers) of our lives being transformed in genuinely good ways? Can technology be transformed?\nIf so, Borgmann says that:\nIt must be a way of finding counter-forces to technology that are guided by a clear and incisive view of technology and will therefore not be deflected or co-opted by technology. At the same time, such counter-forces must be able to respect the legitimacy of the promise and to guard the indispensable and admirable accomplishments of technology. (153)\nHere we get a clear (if rare) statement that Borgmann is not opposed to the promise of technology or to recognizing its massive positive achievements. But the promise of technology must ultimately be grounded in something other than technology\u0026rsquo;s characteristic way of operating. We must not be asleep at the helm while the ship steers itself. And what exactly can ground technology in such a way is the subject of the next and last Part of TCCL: The Reform of Technology.\nPhoto credit: Jonathan Lipps 2008 (La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2015/03/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-19-the-stability-of-technology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e The point of this last chapter of Part 2 is to explore how \u0026ldquo;stable\u0026rdquo; the technological condition is on its own. We need to address this question because we\u0026rsquo;ve established that the technological condition is in need of reform. But if the whole thing isn\u0026rsquo;t very stable to begin with, then reform/revolution is easy: we simply wait for technological culture to fall apart on its own. In fact, many critics of technology take essentially this view\u0026mdash;they believe technology is inherently unstable or has self-defeating tendencies. Borgmann disagrees with this assessment. His view is that technology has the resources within itself to solve whatever problems confront it, even the internal problems. The way that it will solve these problems is by continuing to extend the Device Paradigm into new areas, until it encompasses the whole of existence. Thus it is not a matter of technology \u0026ldquo;running out of steam\u0026rdquo; (pun intended), except accidentally or incidentally; it\u0026rsquo;s a matter of being clear about what a fully-technologized reality looks like so that we can attempt the necessary reform before it gets to that point. And that reform can\u0026rsquo;t be implemented if we misjudge the strength of the technological position.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 19, \"The Stability of Technology\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nWe come now to one of the longest and, in my opinion, most interesting chapters of TCCL. The counterpart to the subject of the previous chapter (labor in technological society) is leisure. We recall that the splitting of life’s occupations into two distinct modes (labor and leisure) mirrors exactly the working of the Device Paradigm. Labor becomes the hidden machinery and leisure the surface, the commodity we are fundamentally “about” in life. Borgmann points out in this chapter that critiquing technological labor (what we have done in the previous chapter) is therefore only one side of the story: even proponents of technological society would readily admit that technological labor may not be the most fulfilling or most meaningful aspect of technological life. But the reason we accept the kind of work available in technological society is because it opens the possibility of leisure, of happiness—this is what the work is for. Surely technological society’s most compelling argument is to be found in the supposed fruits of technology, a life of leisure.\nWhat are these fruits exactly? They come in two varieties: the first has a negative, disburdening character. Freedom from disease, for example. The other is more about consumption, which is what we normally associate with “leisure”. Technological visionaries took the negative form for granted; it was the positive form that conveyed the true promise of technology. But how has this actually been cashed out? As Borgmann says, “the fear that the positive and shining goal of technology has after two centuries of gigantic efforts remained distant and may even slip from sight leads a note of urgency if not panic to the pronouncements of those who urge that we continue to promote technology” (125). He quotes Isaac Asimov for context: “Robots will leave to human beings the tasks that are intrinsically human, such as sport, entertainment, and scientific research”. Here we begin to get to the heart of the issue. The promise of technology has always been that of a supremely enriched life. A life free of disease and premature death, certainly, but it is the positive character of the technologically liberated life which has inspired the speeches and rhetoric of technology’s proponents. It’s therefore eminently important to ask what exactly this positive character is supposed to be, and whether we see it actually taking shape in our lives.\nThere’s a problem in getting started with this question, unfortunately, and it has to do with the way that liberal democracy shields its inner workings from critique. Within this paradigm it’s inappropriate for us to discuss particularities of the ends individuals pursue; we can only ensure that those ends are left open. Borgmann wants to challenge this aspect of liberal democracy directly, and reopen a public discussion of the good life, but that particular argument awaits us in Part 3. For now, we have something else to work with, namely the concept of “excellence”. Borgmann argues that what is most clearly in view, both in the ideals of liberal democracy (what it hopes its citizens will aspire to) and in the promise of technological leisure, is something very much related to traditional notions of “excellence”. Borgmann sees excellence (inherited from the classical world with some Judeo-Christian influence) as consisting of 4 attributes:\nWorld citizenship (understanding the structure and coherence of the physical and social universe, being politically and socially knowledgeable and engaged) Gallantry (intellectual and physical valor and refinement) Facility in music and the arts Charity (the power to give, forgive, help, and heal) Of course, these traits were perhaps only ever explicitly pursued by a non-working elite, but in the modern period there have existed analogues that all of us can readily relate to regardless of class. Assuming that something along these lines is implicitly or explicitly what proponents of technology like Asimov mean by “tasks that are intrinsically human” (i.e., the tasks we aspire to engage in with the leisure time afforded us by technology), we can straightforwardly evaluate whether our society is becoming “excellent” in this way by asking two questions: first, are people actually achieving these qualities in themselves? And second, whether or not they are achieving these qualities, how much of their available time and effort are they spending in pursuit of them?\nI don’t think many will argue when Borgmann claims that the answer to the first question is a resounding “no”. Political disengagement is the norm, as is obesity. The arts are in decline, the foreign policy of the US can only be described as heavy-handed, and charity is rarely observed on the streets of our cities or in the laws we promulgate. We also have some data when it comes to answering the second question about how much time we spend pursuing activities that could reasonably lead to excellence as defined above. But before we answer that question, it is important to note that just because technological devices provide more free time, we don’t necessarily adopt it as leisure. We can also choose to engage in more labor (say to make more money and pursue a higher standard of living). That in fact is what we as a whole have consistently chosen, at least since WWII. We’ve chosen bigger houses and more commodities instead of more time to pursue “leisurely” ends. But what of the time that we do have for such ends? Borgmann goes into some detail on this, and with various qualifications, we can conclude that we spend about 4 times as much of our free time on TV as on excellence-promoting activities (sport, reading, political engagement, music, etc…). [And remember that Borgmann wrote TCCL three decades ago. Anecdotally, every statistic I’ve seen since childhood has only shown an increase in time devoted to TV and eventually Internet-based media.]\nIt’s likely that none of this is surprising, but Borgmann insists it should be disturbing to proponents of technology, who for hundreds of years have used something like the promise of excellence-filled leisure to inspire gargantuan efforts in the service of a technological reshaping of the world. Of course, it’s always open for a proponent of technology to let slip the moorings of traditional excellence, and claim that a technological age has its own inner logic that early advocates simply could not articulate. In fact, the Device Paradigm is one such formulation of technology according to its own inner workings: it says that the technological enterprise succeeds not when everyone is pursuing excellence but when every thing is technologically available (in the sense defined in Chapter 9). But does technological availability lead to happiness? Another way of putting the foregoing discussion about leisure is to say that technology has always held high the promise of happiness.\nHappiness is of course hard to define a priori, and it’s no less of a moving target when defined from a technological perspective. But, it’s not difficult to ask people how happy they feel. If this kind of avowed happiness is any indication, technology is doing quite poorly; as technology has reshaped more and more of everyday life, professed happiness has decreased, at least since WWII. What explanations are there for this? Some (e.g., Scitovsky) warrant that while technological ends like watching TV are not inferior to the ends of traditional excellence, they tend toward comfort rather than pleasure (which Scitovsky argues involves some discomfort). Thus if we could manufacture the right neurochemical triggers, we could solve the problem of happiness by inducing constant pleasure. Clearly this is a position that leaves excellence by the wayside, and I don’t think Borgmann’s argument will appeal to someone who takes this strong view.\nAnother explanation for technological unhappiness comes from Hirsch. He argues that there are fundamentally three types of goods: (1) commercial goods or commodities, (2) positional goods (ones that clarify a person’s position in society, like a PhD or perhaps an expensive car), and (3) public goods (like clean air, trust, and open spaces; things that we either all have in common or none of us does). Hirsch’s critique of technology is then that technological society excels at bringing us goods of type #1, but not the other types. An expensive car, which used to be a positional good, once commoditized and made more available, ceases to be one. Or the introduction of freeways and extensive parking spaces rids us of clean air and public parks, thus vitiating public goods. And on Hirsch’s view, happiness is correlated with positional goods. While Borgmann appreciates in general this types-of-goods analysis, he doesn’t agree with Hirsch’s explanation of our dissatisfaction with technological society. According to Hirsch, we should be much more dissatisfied than Borgmann claims we actually are; on Borgmann’s view, as long as the escalator of commoditization keeps moving, positionality is maintained, and thus that can’t be the deepest source of our unhappiness.\nInstead, Borgmann thinks that it is the divided character of technological goods themselves which renders us unsatisfied. As he says, “what distinguishes technological life is not surliness but its division into surfaces, rough or pleasant, and concealed, inaccessible substructures. Perhaps it is this divided character of our lives that leaves us unhappy”. In other words, the Device Paradigm puts part of life into these concealed substructures, taking them out of our grasp, along with any possibility of relationship with them. The Device Paradigm explains how a thing is divided into its function (or commodity) on one hand and its machinery on the other. A fireplace, a hearth, is turned into (1) a heating apparatus that delivers (2) warmth. But a hearth was never a free-standing element. It was always embedded into the fabric of social life, embedded deeply into family rhythms and the organization of the home. So by making a break down the middle of the hearth, technology not only divides the hearth, but it lifts it out of its context, “dis-embedding” it. If the former break is a “horizontal” break (dividing the hearth into say an “upper” commodity and a “lower” machinery), then a knock-on effect is the creation of “vertical” tears in the fabric of life of which the hearth was a part. As more and more “things” are reanalyzed as “devices”, these rifts become more concrete and distinct. The end result is a sea of free-floating devices, tastes, and commodities, which can be put together and arranged in a multiplicity of ways. This is what we now do as moderns when we build our “lifestyles” out of the variety of options made available to us through advertisements. But an infinitely-rearrangeable collection of commodities is vastly different from what we have been calling the “fabric” of life, where that word is chosen to convey an essential unity.\nIt is this fundamental distinction that Borgmann sees underlying our unhappiness with technological society, and why he believes that the resources for resolving that unhappiness cannot be found within technology itself (since the Device Paradigm is the constitutive pattern of technology’s operation). But we’ve only been examining one kind of technological good—the positive kind that most inspired technology’s early proponents. We’ve seen that technology has some deep difficulties in actually keeping the promises it’s made with regard to happiness. But what about the other kind of good, the negative, “defensive” goods like vaccinations, snow removal machines, etc…? Do they not provide happiness of a more lasting and solid kind than “mere” commodities? Borgmann maintains that the answer to this question is also “no”. Of course, upon their introduction into our lives, these goods provide a burst of happiness in the form of relief, and many (vaccines, for example), genuinely increase health in an appreciable way. But we quickly come to regard these as the status quo, and they no longer become noticeable except in their absence. Ultimately, comfort is a deadening force that attenuates our experience of the world to close to nothing. Work in technological society is a matter (for most people) of pushing buttons rather than engaging with true skill. And as a society we look for more and more minor inconveniences to wipe away with the magic wand of technology, only deepening our numbness with greater comfort.\nSo why do we stand this? Why have we as a society not recognized this source of our unease and done something about it? Borgmann points out that while these negative or “defensive” goods can only solve so many problems before becoming completely banal, there is another stream of technological good that is unlimited, namely entertainment. Borgmann defines “entertainment” as commodities we can eat, see, and hear, and these are all things which have by now become totally available in a technological sense. The classic example of entertainment is TV (though now it should perhaps be online media). Borgmann’s problem with TV is not so much that it actively harms society as that it prevents other, genuinely good things from occurring. TV, and now the tablet device, have become the pre-eminent parenting tool for modern children, who grow up under a flood of missed parenting opportunities. The fact that TV and the Internet also prevent us from pursuing activities that lead to our avowed societal and individual goals of excellence is another example. And a TV, of course, is the perfect example of the Device Paradigm, split perfectly into a magical commodity (TV screens these days are just about 100% viewing area) and ineffable machinery. Borgmann thinks that all of this can perhaps explain our unhappiness in a deep way: we all know the quality of TV programming is not that great, and that it doesn’t in general promote an excellent life to watch it. But at the same time we can’t let go; “it provides a center for our leisure and an authority for the appreciation of commodities” (143). As a limitless form of entertainment, it is a palliative for our unhappiness even as it perpetuates it.\nClearly, this picture of modern life is bleak. If we agree with Borgmann, we’ll want to be asking the question of how we can reform such a condition. That’s where Borgmann goes in Part 3 of TCCL. But before we explore the reformation of technology, we have to ask how stable the condition we’ve just described is. How stable is the technological paradigm? This is what we’ll discuss in the next chapter!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2015/02/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-18-leisure-excellence-and-happiness/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e We come now to one of the longest and, in my opinion, most interesting chapters of \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e. The counterpart to the subject of the previous chapter (labor in technological society) is \u003cem\u003eleisure\u003c/em\u003e. We recall that the splitting of life’s occupations into two distinct modes (labor and leisure) mirrors exactly the working of the Device Paradigm. Labor becomes the hidden machinery and leisure the surface, the commodity we are fundamentally “about” in life. Borgmann points out in this chapter that critiquing technological labor (what we have done in the previous chapter) is therefore only one side of the story: even proponents of technological society would readily admit that technological labor may not be the most fulfilling or most meaningful aspect of technological life. But the reason we accept the kind of work available in technological society is because it opens the possibility of leisure, of happiness—this is what the work is \u003cem\u003efor\u003c/em\u003e. Surely technological society’s most compelling argument is to be found in the supposed fruits of technology, a life of leisure.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 18, \"Leisure, Excellence and Happiness\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThe previous 16 chapters have sufficed to give us a good sketch of the character of technology, outlining it and delineating it in various ways. But now Borgmann is concerned to give the picture some depth, some attachment to the world that we all live in so as to impress upon us the seriousness of our current social predicament and how the Device Paradigm now typifies the structure of something so essentially quotidian as work. There are of course many other clear examples of the impact of technology in our world, in science, the military, etc\u0026hellip; But work and leisure are concepts with which every citizen is intimate, and so showing the radical effect of technology in this sphere is a good way to implicate each of us in its operation.\nBorgmann\u0026rsquo;s basic thesis is that \u0026ldquo;work\u0026rdquo; as a concept and praxis has split down the middle into \u0026ldquo;labor\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;leisure\u0026rdquo;, showing the characteristic rift of a technological device (the rift between ends and means, at the deepest philosophical level). This situation is, he claims, unique to the modern era, and should be interpreted as a direct result of the expansion of the Device Paradigm into more and more areas of human life. So what are \u0026ldquo;labor\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;leisure\u0026rdquo;? Leisure he defines as the \u0026ldquo;unencumbered enjoyment of commodities\u0026rdquo;, whereas labor is \u0026ldquo;devoted to the construction and maintenance of the machinery that procures the commodities\u0026rdquo; (114). So there is an interesting recursive or circular nature to the equation, where work is relegated from the status of something significant in and of itself to a means to the end of leisure. This chapter is dedicated to understanding the concept of labor just described (\u0026ldquo;technological work\u0026rdquo;), in technological society. The next chapter will be devoted to the concept of leisure.\nWhy do I say that work has been \u0026ldquo;relegated\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;degraded\u0026rdquo;? Borgmann takes for granted that, in pre-technological eras, work was, in at least some contexts, fulfilling and ennobling. He doesn\u0026rsquo;t claim that all pre-technological work is in this category, but rather that there are concrete existential proofs of this fulfillment. So we can at least ask whether, in our technological society, there is the possibility of fulfilling and ennobling work\u0026mdash;whether labor as the means to leisure can be put in this category. Borgmann clarifies that \u0026ldquo;technological work\u0026rdquo; is not the specialization of labor (an ancient practice indeed) or the dividing of the work process into discrete chunks (a common strategy for any craftsperson). What\u0026rsquo;s unique about work in the era of technological society is the division of the work process into the smallest possible pieces, and making a single piece the entire responsibility of a single class of worker. This is what distinguishes the artisan from the assembly line worker: the artisan who makes a hundred objects might divide the work process into distinct stages and tackle each stage for all products at once; but she is at the end of the day responsible from start to finish. The assembly line worker, on the other hand, is responsible for only a tiny piece of the finished product, a piece which has been removed from its context and which makes it difficult for the worker to self-identify as an owner or craftsperson.\nSo why did we move to an assembly-line model? What are its advantages? Adam Smith and other early proponents of a (proto-)technological approach to labor thought that being responsible for just one small task would enable a worker to perform that task with the highest degree of dexterity. This in turn would promote an emphasis on the twin values of reliability and productivity (part and parcel of the concept of technological \u0026ldquo;availability\u0026rdquo; discussed earlier). Reliability and productivity are at their highest when so many \u0026ldquo;human\u0026rdquo; elements (individual judgment, mood, energy, attitude, etc\u0026hellip;) are eliminated from the production process. In the limit, of course, this means doing away with the human as producer entirely (which we\u0026rsquo;ll get to in a moment), but before robotics was a viable solution, it meant narrowing the window of responsibility for the individual human worker to something small enough that that person\u0026rsquo;s individuality could not impress itself upon the final product. Of course, whether this actually promotes \u0026ldquo;dexterity\u0026rdquo; depends on what you mean by that word. As Borgmann says, if you mean trained ability of bodily timing, strength, and overall care and precision, then the assembly-line model actually eliminates dexterity.\nIn addition, dividing labor in this way, in every instance where it springs up, always comes to replace an existing societal structure, splitting that structure into the twins of production and commodity. Borgmann gives the example of insurance\u0026mdash;before financial instrumentation became sophisticated, securing oneself against the vicissitudes of life involved a network of neighbors or guildmates who, to a greater or lesser degree, ameliorated the pain of individual loss. As security has now become technologized and commoditized, it can be had much more reliably, plentifully, and without the social awkwardness of asking for help; it can be had with cash. But in this way we have also of course lost something hard to define\u0026mdash;a sense of community or trust in one\u0026rsquo;s fellow creatures, perhaps.\nThese claims about technology\u0026rsquo;s dulling effect on the character of work are not intended to be universal: technology does provide extremely satisfying work\u0026hellip; but primarily for those involved at the forefront, the leading edge of the technical enterprise. The engineers, programmers, and entrepreneurs who uncover a technological solution to a problem follow a challenging and rewarding path to that solution, a path often full of energy, vigor, and the sense that one\u0026rsquo;s capacity is being tested, enlarged. But in our wake (and I say our for I\u0026rsquo;m such a technologist professionally) we leave a \u0026ldquo;wasteland of divided labor\u0026rdquo;. The skill taken to divide a kind of work into its smallest manageable components is interesting and rewarding, but for those who are left with those bite-sized chunks of labor as their livelihood, the satisfaction is greatly lessened. Work that was previously done by an artisan can now be done by the combination of machine and unskilled worker (or eventually, entirely by machine).\nBorgmann points out that this situation should be really embarrassing for liberal democracy, which as we saw in an earlier chapter lists the maximizing of human potential and fulfillment as its chief aim. But like social injustice, as a society we are content to bear the degradation of work for the technological promise of liberation. And so we readily believe that yesterday\u0026rsquo;s work force is \u0026ldquo;outdated\u0026rdquo; or must be \u0026ldquo;upgraded\u0026rdquo; to adapt to the digital age (rather than asking whether these \u0026ldquo;upgrades\u0026rdquo; actually give greater satisfaction to those whose work is radically altered by them). Or we claim that the greater length of education reflects a higher degree of training necessary for working in the modern world (rather than allowing that it might be artificially lengthened by the generally decreasing need for labor\u0026mdash;education as labor\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;waiting room\u0026rdquo;). Or we ignore that it is an ever-shrinking pool of technological elites that provide the driving force of technological progress.\nSo far we\u0026rsquo;ve argued that we do mask the ongoing degradation of work, even in a liberal democracy that strongly believes in the dignity bestowed by work. But this doesn\u0026rsquo;t explain why we\u0026rsquo;ve done that. How was it ever possible? In fact it was a long and sometimes violent process to mold workers into assembly-line worker bees. Convincing craftspeople to give up ownership of the entire production process was a hard sell, at first. And it would be easy to find blame with early entrepreneurs or capitalists, who sometimes viciously forced workers into this new cast. But Borgmann sees the deepest answer in the promise of the Device Paradigm itself\u0026mdash;the promise of liberation and enrichment. And we as a society have been happy to pay the price for this. We\u0026rsquo;ve traded in satisfaction in work for the lessening of burden and the promise of leisure, implicating ourselves in this rift between \u0026ldquo;labor\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;leisure\u0026rdquo;. (And I don\u0026rsquo;t think I need to quote American TV-watching statistics for you to have an understanding of what \u0026ldquo;leisure\u0026rdquo; typically means in our culture).\nThis trend is only going to continue. Borgmann, writing over three decades ago, looks ahead to the \u0026ldquo;microelectronic revolution\u0026rdquo;, which has long since ascended to the status quo. Devices have become so compact and complex that only a small group of experts can truly tell you what\u0026rsquo;s going on inside. Fixing an individual microchip by hand is of course out of the question. But devices built around these ineffable-to-us constructs form an ever-greater portion of our daily lives. The current revolution, that of software (which was crowned king by the Internet), pushes things further in this direction. The fad in the San Francisco startup culture where I am embedded is all about \u0026ldquo;disrupting\u0026rdquo; existing markets and ecosystems\u0026mdash;and of course, pre-software or pre-Internet ways of life. Ultimately what we are disrupting is work itself; through a combination of robotics and software engineering, it will be eliminated entirely. So what then? Will we develop respectable and enjoyable modes of unemployment (which heretofore has been a social standing lacking in dignity)? Will our \u0026ldquo;work\u0026rdquo; essentially become \u0026ldquo;busywork\u0026rdquo;, with no real value? Or will work be redistributed across available workers so that average work time is reduced, and leisure time increased?\nAnd in any of those scenarios, the crucial question becomes: what will we do when we\u0026rsquo;re not working? And will it be worth doing? For that, we\u0026rsquo;ll have to await the next chapter: \u0026ldquo;Leisure, Excellence, and Happiness\u0026rdquo;.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2014/11/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-17-work-and-labor/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe previous 16 chapters have sufficed to give us a good sketch of the character of technology, outlining it and delineating it in various ways. But now Borgmann is concerned to give the picture some depth, some attachment to the world that we all live in so as to impress upon us the seriousness of our current social predicament and how the Device Paradigm now typifies the structure of something so essentially quotidian as work. There are of course many other clear examples of the impact of technology in our world, in science, the military, etc\u0026hellip; But work and leisure are concepts with which every citizen is intimate, and so showing the radical effect of technology in this sphere is a good way to implicate each of us in its operation.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 17, \"Work and Labor\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThis is the last chapter in the section on technology and its relationship with the political aspect of society. One of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s primary insights here is that technology is a good explanation for the social and political apathy that is so prevalent, yet so disturbing in a nation like the US whose founding ideals are very much linked with political engagement.\nThe primary reason for this state of things is that politics has become the \u0026ldquo;metadevice of the technological society\u0026rdquo; (107). By this Borgmann means that the political system has itself taken on the characteristics of the Device Paradigm\u0026mdash;procuring certain commodities for us while relegating to obscurity its own inner workings. And it is a \u0026ldquo;metadevice\u0026rdquo; because what it is now primarily concerned with procuring is the smooth functioning of technology in society! Government has become the servant whose purpose is to keep the technological machine humming, because this machine is what society now generally feels is the key to fulfillment and equality.\nIt is easy to see the \u0026ldquo;deviceification\u0026rdquo; of government at work. Its bureaucracy is Byzantine, and as citizens we hardly know how it works other than that our taxes go in and various social services and protections come out. The human and personal are not at home in a system like this (as an anecdote, I called the California DMV earlier this week, and was greeted with a customer service representative\u0026rsquo;s bored voice: \u0026ldquo;Hello, this is 478, how may I help you?\u0026rdquo;). Huge governmental structures have been built up with the sole purpose of eliminating disturbances in how we go about procuring commodities. With this as the primary goal, it\u0026rsquo;s no surprise that citizens have no particular reason to be engaged\u0026mdash;unless our ability to live out the aims of technological availability become threatened.\nThis doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that technology has blocked all possibility of genuine political engagement, but for most of us it\u0026rsquo;s a moot point. We\u0026rsquo;ve become apathetic essentially out of contentment. But this raises some important questions. What about the energizing democratic ideal of equality? Surely no one would say we\u0026rsquo;ve obtained full equality in our society. Shouldn\u0026rsquo;t technology through its equalizing tendencies spur on political engagement around this ideal? Unfortunately, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t work that way. Despite what Borgmann calls technology\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;weak\u0026rdquo; tendency towards equality, there is a deeper process at work. We tend to measure inequality quite bluntly from the perspective of income (which is itself defined in terms of technology\u0026mdash;essentially as the rate of commodity acquisition available to us), rather than many of the other qualities we could choose to measure.\nClearly, there is great inequality in our country when it comes to income. A number of explanations have been given for this, most unsatisfactory. Some failed hypotheses:\nIncome reflects work; the more you work, the more income you have. Thus it all boils down to how hard one works. Inequality incentivizes work, so it\u0026rsquo;s a good thing we have inequality to help kickstart the economic engines. People are just in the dark when it comes to inequality, so it sticks around. None of these claims are true. Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s explanation is that inequality gives a clear indication of what the stages of technological availability are, and therefore a promise of what a given individual will be able to procure in the future. What the wealthy upper classes have access to today, through the gifts of technology will be available to the middle classes in 10 years and the lower classes 5 years after that. Thus in a technological society inequality is constant, but quality of life is like a moving escalator\u0026mdash;just wait 5 years and you will be able to have the kind of quality of life that higher-income individuals have now. We have a good reason, as lower- or middle-class society, then, to suffer this inequality. If the upper classes drive the development of technology that only they can afford, it will certainly be available to us at some point in the future\u0026mdash;we have just to wait.\nTechnology is therefore embedded deeply but subtly into the hopes and goals of our economic reality. True to form, it stays in the background unless threatened. In fact, most actual political energy (despite the recent moral debates in our country) is around maintaining the proper function of this escalator. Substantial inequalities that don\u0026rsquo;t impinge on the ability to continually procure successively more impressive commodities are ignored or back-burnered. As long as the escalator functions, our focus and energy will be on attaining the next level, on consuming tomorrow what the classes higher than us are consuming today. Thus technology contributes a sort of political numbing effect, a deep disengagement with civic responsibility except where the technological machine threatens to break down. It goes without saying that this makes true political discourse\u0026mdash;discussion about matters of the common good and indeed what the good life of society is\u0026mdash;impossible.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2014/10/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-16-political-engagement-and-social-justice/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the last chapter in the section on technology and its relationship with the political aspect of society. One of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s primary insights here is that technology is a good explanation for the social and political apathy that is so prevalent, yet so disturbing in a nation like the US whose founding ideals are very much linked with political engagement.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 16, \"Political Engagement and Social Justice\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nIn this chapter, Borgmann is interested in answering the question of how people actually relate to technology in our society, regardless of the role technology plays in the political theories that undergird society. Looking at empirical sociological data is difficult, because so many interpretations can be given to, e.g., survey data. So he acknowledges that we have to come to the data with a bit of a guiding premise, which the previous chapters have provided.\nThe first helpful question we can ask in regard to the chapter\u0026rsquo;s theme is: how do people take responsibility for technology? Do they do so at all? Do they engage in active choice? This line of questioning is interesting because it gets at the heart of the character of technology, highlighting the substantive and instrumental positions that would give different answers about what that character is. On a substantive view, people have essentially no responsibility\u0026mdash;technology as a thing in its own right has overpowered us and we are now unable to choose against it. This is a kind of determinism. The instrumental view would argue the opposite: that we remain free agents and are always in fact choosing for or against technology; the fact that we almost always choose for it is therefore purely our responsibility. Borgmann isn\u0026rsquo;t a fan of either of these positions, and points out that we\u0026rsquo;re not likely to come to a philosophical agreement on free will vs determinism that could help adjudicate between them.\nAnswering the question empirically is fraught with conceptual problems, too. Technology isn\u0026rsquo;t presented to us as a choice, but rather a basis for other choices, in which a vote for the technological paradigm is already implied (in the same way that a good salesperson will ask a client which of a variety of services will meet the clients needs best, not whether the client needs any services at all). A choice against technology is therefore kind of odd\u0026mdash;it would seem paternalistic and totalitarian, a vote for remaining in squalor when so much opportunity is at hand. Thus technology disappears at the very moment of choice, and becomes the ground for choice rather than its object.\nBut, we can ask a proxy question: to what amount do people engage with focal things and practices, and to what amount do they disengage with them in favor of technological substitutes? This would give us a good idea of how people are actually choosing in regard to technology even when it remains in the background. From this perspective, we gain a lot of information when we observe, say, a family choosing to eat out rather than prepare a meal at home. Or when we observe young professionals moving from city to city for the sake of career advancement rather than choosing a life of being rooted in one place. Or when we observe children being gifted with limitless amounts of music on their mobile devices instead of being given a musical instrument.\nBorgmann is clear that these choices are not necessarily conscious. The whole idea of the paradigm of technology is that it is the fundamental operating pattern of our society; choosing according to this pattern is therefore the normal, the obvious thing to do. Technology is not an overtly oppressive overlord that visibly threatens our freedom, rather freedom is its promise. All this to say, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t require conscious choice to move in the direction of lesser engagement with focal things and practices, but these are still choices, however deeply patterned. Borgmann calls this being \u0026ldquo;implicated\u0026rdquo; in technology. We already exist within its paradigm, and so without conscious choice we will continue to choose according to the pattern of technology.\nBut what moves us to take the first step in this direction, however \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; it is? Relief (at the thought of not having to prepare another meal when one is already tired). Hope (of the procurement of nicer things made more available through technology). Impatience with the obstinate nature and slow pace of non-devices. The desire to see children given opportunities to grow as quickly and painlessly as possible. But there is often a nagging feeling that comes with trading in focal things and practices because of these motivations. When that is (at least initially) present, Borgmann sees us not just as \u0026ldquo;implicated\u0026rdquo; in the world of technology, but \u0026ldquo;complicit\u0026rdquo; in it.\nWith this framework in hand, we have an idea of how to evaluate sociological data, for example, a survey of people\u0026rsquo;s attitudes towards technology. The survey that Borgmann highlights asks about respondents\u0026rsquo; attitudes towards three statements:\n\u0026ldquo;People have become too dependent on machines\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Technology has made life complicated\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;It would be nice if we would stop building so many machines and go back to nature\u0026rdquo; The published results highlighted that there was \u0026ldquo;considerable ambivalence\u0026rdquo; towards technology in responses, and that people exhibited contradictory understandings of what technology actually is. That being said, it was clear that in general technology was viewed favorably. Further exploration of motivations unveiled that, despite ambivalence in attitude, people look to technology to provide higher and higher standards of living and leisure. That is, while respondents were on balance convinced that technology increased their general happiness (which has been shown in other studies not to be the case), they were unsure about the positive effect of technology on overall standards of living (which is remarkable given that it be clearly shown that technology has indeed advanced global health and living standards). In other words, what people wanted from technology was not just a certain standard of living, but a constantly increasing standard of living.\nThese results, Borgmann points out, mesh very well with the definition of \u0026ldquo;complicity\u0026rdquo; he gave earlier. While there is some sense that we are losing something in turning to technological solutions, we continue to look to them for increased quality of life. While on one hand we are simply choosing technological modes because they are the default, on the other hand we know in some sense what we are doing and why; in that sense we are free, and therefore \u0026ldquo;complicit\u0026rdquo; or responsible. The question Borgmann does not yet ask is whether we acknowledge that responsibility and what our attitudes are towards it. Do we affirm and own these choices, or do we sweep them under the rug?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2014/09/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-15-the-rule-of-technology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this chapter, Borgmann is interested in answering the question of how people \u003cem\u003eactually\u003c/em\u003e relate to technology in our society, regardless of the role technology plays in the political theories that undergird society. Looking at empirical sociological data is difficult, because so many interpretations can be given to, e.g., survey data. So he acknowledges that we have to come to the data with a bit of a guiding premise, which the previous chapters have provided.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 15, \"The Rule of Technology\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nWe now continue our discussion of technology and the political arena. This chapter in particular is about the theoretical dimension of politics, i.e., how people have formulated the ideas behind our political system and how they interact with technology. We in the US and many other places exist within what is broadly known as the \u0026ldquo;liberal democratic tradition\u0026rdquo;. It can be defined succinctly as the intersection of the values of liberty, equality, and self-realization. More than anything else, liberal democracy wants to leave the question of the good life (what is it to live well as a human being?) open, because it believes the individual self must determine its own answer to that question.\nWhat Borgmann is concerned to argue here is that it is only the paradigm of technology which allows liberal democracy to achieve its three-fold aims, and thus technology becomes the hidden engine, pushing this political system forward while the system itself fails to acknowledge that, clothed in the tidings of liberal democracy or not, the pattern of technology comes with a concrete and definite vision of the good life. In other words, there is a deep contradiction in the heart of the theory: what it wants it can only get (via technology) at the cost of what it holds most dear.\nEchoes of this theorizing can be found as early as JS Mill: \u0026ldquo;The grand, leading principle\u0026hellip;is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity\u0026rdquo; (86). Since then, debates (between scholars like CB Macpherson and Ronald Dworkin) have focused on what constitutes this moral idea of \u0026ldquo;human development\u0026rdquo;. Is it that everyone is equally free to realize her potential? Is it some more positive form of opportunity? Ultimately, it has become clear that no agreement on that point is forthcoming. For Dworkin, this situation is to be expected, for \u0026ldquo;to arrogate the determination of the good life for others is to practice paternalism\u0026rdquo; (88). The responsibility of the theory is merely to provide justification for self-determination.\nThis plays very conveniently into the multiplicity-of-ends philosophy that undergirds and is encouraged by the technological paradigm. And so we see that same paradigm at work in politics: electoral debates become about how to secure the conditions of the good life, not what that good life is. (Of course, some theorists are not content to provide space for self-determination and explicitly conform their theories to the promise of technology; \u0026ldquo;utopian democracy\u0026rdquo;, for example, aims to procure radical availability (precisely the promise of technology)\u0026mdash;essential possessive equivalence, without a class structure).\nBut in general, what we have is a theory of liberty (freedom, equality, and self-development) defined negatively, telling us purely what to do to create space for a theoretical infinitude of possible ends. And this (despite all the practical impossibilities around creating that kind of negative equality) is beginning to sound exactly like a system of devices. Moreover, it hides the deeper question: what is the nature of opportunities we say are essential for \u0026ldquo;equality\u0026rdquo;? There is a spectrum of answers here, and Borgmann names three points along it: first, we have the \u0026ldquo;constitutional\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;formally just\u0026rdquo; society, where society is given (in technical terms) freedom to pursue their own ends, but not the means by which to do it. Then we have the \u0026ldquo;fair\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;substantially just\u0026rdquo; society which provides freedom and some kind of means by which to pursue individual goals. Finally, we could think of a totally \u0026ldquo;good\u0026rdquo; society, which provides in addition to freedom and means a direction, a set of centering and orienting goals\u0026mdash;a vision of the good.\nBorgmann then argues that it\u0026rsquo;s impossible in any of these types of theories to avoid the concept of goodness or centering/orienting goals. Even in the merely \u0026ldquo;constitutional\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;fair\u0026rdquo; society, the nature of opportunities is going to be present in some pattern, in some definite shape; in liberal democracy, that shape is the pattern of technology. But because this definite shaping is anathema to the spirit of liberal democracy, which aims to keep itself out of the good life, it ends up sweeping under the rug the intrusion of the vision of the good defined by technology. Liberal democracy denies us a vision of the man behind the curtain because it is so damaging to the purity of the theory. Think about even basic structures in our society like roads or television. It could be argued that networks such as these are value-neutral, mere equality-and-opportunity-producing mechanisms\u0026mdash;a road being built does not force you to drive on it! On the other hand, as Borgmann puts it, \u0026ldquo;a mountain valley split by a road is no longer a place for solitary hiking\u0026rdquo; (96). The point isn\u0026rsquo;t that roads are bad, it\u0026rsquo;s that it is disingenuous to assert that even basic infrastructure is \u0026ldquo;mere\u0026rdquo; means, and doesn\u0026rsquo;t arrogate itself as an end. It does, even if by just restricting the kinds of life available to us! The systems of our society may be indifferent when it comes to how we consume commodities, but they don\u0026rsquo;t really give us the option of not engaging with commodities in the first place.\nUltimately, Borgmann wants to bring a discussion of this hidden pattern out into the open. It is only once we have acknowledged that we all come to the table with ideas about the public, shared good life (whether we like it or not) that we can have a productive conversation in the political arena about issues more substantial than the continued production of commodities.\nNext up: we move from theory to practice and look at how people in our society have in fact come to terms with the technological paradigm.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2014/09/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-14-technology-and-democracy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe now continue our discussion of technology and the political arena. This chapter in particular is about the \u003cem\u003etheoretical\u003c/em\u003e dimension of politics, i.e., how people have formulated the ideas behind our political system and how they interact with technology. We in the US and many other places exist within what is broadly known as the \u0026ldquo;liberal democratic tradition\u0026rdquo;. It can be defined succinctly as the intersection of the values of liberty, equality, and self-realization. More than anything else, liberal democracy wants to leave the question of the good life (what is it to live well as a human being?) open, because it believes the individual self must determine its own answer to that question.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 14, \"Technology and Democracy\""},{"content":"I gave a talk today called Internet of Nothings: Technology and Our Relationship With the Things in Our World at LXJS, a JavaScript conference in Lisbon, Portugal. I\u0026rsquo;m excited to have been given the opportunity to talk about the philosophy of technology! There\u0026rsquo;s an embedded video of the talk below, and I\u0026rsquo;ve included the slides, the slightly-edited text of my notes, as well as the lyrics to the song I performed. If you\u0026rsquo;re new to my blog and this topic, I recommend checking out my Blogging Borgmann series, where I\u0026rsquo;m blogging chapter-by-chapter through a book on the philosophy of technology by Albert Borgmann. Enjoy!\nTalk video Thanks to @aca_video for the video!\nSlides [speakerdeck https://speakerdeck.com/jlipps/internet-of-nothings]\nTalk notes/transcript Hello everyone! Good morning! I’m Jonathan Lipps, @jlipps on Twitter, and I work for a company called Sauce Labs. I’m in charge of our Ecosystem \u0026amp; Integrations team, which means I help take care of the open-source ecosystem around Sauce Labs and automated testing. Mostly I work on a project called Appium, which I talked about at LXJS last year. I’m really proud that Sauce is sponsoring LXJS again! And I want to thank the organizers for the amazing job they’ve done making this a remarkable conference for the JavaScript community. Last year, with their support and encouragement, I had the most fun I’ve ever had giving a conference talk, and I’m very thankful to have the opportunity to hang out with you guys a second time.\nThis year, I don’t have a crazy software robot music demo. Instead, I want to engage you guys with some questions I think are important for us to wrestle with. Something I love about the JavaScript community is that we take the time to talk about more than programming. We don’t always have a perfect dialogue about cultural issues, but I’m heartened that it exists. There are many industries out there you’d be hard-pressed to find the barest recognition that its community is made up of people, not just “professionals”. I like that the JavaScript community, and this conference, recognize that we are human beings first and foremost, even though we are gathered here because of a shared love for programming and JavaScript. So here’s my attempt to engage that human aspect of our technological adventure.\nI think what I have to say is best digested as a conversation, not a series of bullet points, and I want these 20 − 30 minutes to be merely the first words of that conversation. I hope you’ll listen to what I have to say, evaluate it critically, and find me sometime this weekend to continue the dialogue.\nOK! Enough preamble. I want to talk to you guys about the philosophy of technology. Philosophy and technology are both long-term loves of mine, but it’s only recently that I was made aware that you could put them together. Of the two, technology came first for me. Let’s take JavaScript specifically since we’re at LXJS: I wrote my first JavaScript code about 17 years ago when I needed a scrolling ticker for a welcome message on my website. Sounds like exactly the sort of thing you’d use JavaScript for back then, right? And when I say “wrote”, I mean, “copy and pasted”. It wasn’t until 12 years ago that I wrote my first JavaScript program from scratch myself—a supremely customizable, JS-only drop-down menu script. I even made it “open-source”, though I had no idea what that really meant!\nWhen I got to university, instead of studying computer science as I originally intended, I chose to pursue philosophy, because I was curious about the biggest questions it was possible to ask: questions about God, the nature of reality, the nature of science, how we truly know things, and so on. Of course, there’s not a lot of job opportunities as a philosopher, so I ended up becoming a programmer by trade anyway.\nOne thing I learned from philosophy is how to approach questions. Another thing I learned, which any of you who’ve had a philosophy course can corroborate, is that there are always more questions to ask. It can start to feel disorienting, when you’ve asked so many questions, like the rabbit hole goes on forever, and we might as well get back to doing Real Work (like programming, maybe).\nSometimes, this otherwise praiseworthy pragmatism can leave important issues unexamined. And as we know from Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. So, what have we left unexamined in the pursuit of our technological careers? What has the world left unexamined in its wholehearted and wholesale adoption of technological solutions to nearly every problem? Quite a lot, I’d argue! But now I just want to focus on two areas of modern technology, two buzzwords which are familiar to us in our community: the first is the Internet of Things, and the second is the Quantified Self.\nWhat is the Internet of Things? In my understanding it’s the concept that everyday objects, things which have not traditionally been considered computers, can and should be connected to each other, networked in order to enhance the benefits they provide. Another way of looking at it is to say it’s the process of turning “things” into “devices”.\nNow’s a good time to introduce my favorite philosopher of technology, a professor at the University of Montana, Albert Borgmann. Part of Albert Borgmann’s take on on technology is that there is a deep and significant divide between “Things” (Capital-T), and “devices”. This distinction is so important that for him, that for him, technology itself is characterized by what he calls the Device Paradigm. I’ll explain the Device Paradigm in a moment.\nA central question in the philosophy of technology is whether technology should primarily be thought of as a content-less tool, which gains significance purely through the intentions we as the tool-users give it, or whether it has a character of its own, independent of how it is intended to be used. In other words, is technology more like an axe—a tool which can be used for the beneficial purpose of chopping firewood, or the horrible purpose of murder—or more like capitalism or socialism—systems which shape and color every action that takes place within their paradigms, no matter the intent behind those actions? Most people like to think of technology as a tool. We can appropriate it for good purposes or bad, but technology itself is neutral; it has no character outside of the purposes we put it to. But Albert Borgmann has a strong argument that this isn’t the right way to look at technology, and it involves the Device Paradigm that I mentioned earlier. Borgmann claims that technology can best be understood and explained by looking at canonical examples (i.e., a “paradigm”), and noting what they have in common.\nWhat they have in common is the attempt to make a certain good available in a non-burdensome way. What I mean by “good” in this case is just something that’s necessary or desirable for human life. Food, drink, safety, entertainment, etc… And what I mean by “available in a non-burdensome way” can be cashed out in terms of four requirements. Let’s take an example to explore these requirements more concretely. Let’s say the good is heat. For many parts of the world, some form of non-naturally-occurring heat is an essential part of daily existence, especially in winter. Now we can think about different ways of procuring this good of “heat”. A pre-technological way would be to light a wood fire in a stove, whereas a technological example is the kind of electric- or gas-powered central heating systems most of us probably have in our homes.\nIt’s probably obvious that a fire is not available in a non-burdensome way, when compared with a central heating system. But let’s go through the four aspects of “availability” to see why. For something to be truly “available” in this sense is for it to be, first of all, instantaneous. A wood fire is definitely not instantaneous. Wood is not instantly available in burnable form; it has to be chopped and gathered, which is a hard and time-consuming process. A central heating system, on the other hand, begins to provide heat as soon as you flip a switch or move a dial.\nSecondly, perfect availability requires that a good be ubiquitous, meaning it must be available everywhere. A wood fire does not meet the standard here, in that when it provides heat, it does so unevenly, only in the vicinity of the fire itself. A central heating system uses a combination of ducts and vents in order to ensure that the entire house benefits equally from the heat.\nThe third requirement is safety. For a good to be perfectly available, it must be provided in a perfectly safe way. A wood-burning stove is definitely not safe. Working with the tools required to chop wood can be a source of serious accidents. And the fire itself of course is very dangerous, potentially causing death and destruction if not tended appropriately. A central heating system, on the other hand, is relatively safe. We can leave it on for months or years without worrying that it will burn down our house.\nFinally, for a good to be truly available it must be delivered easily, without a lot of physical or cognitive effort. It definitely takes a lot of effort to prepare, use, and clean a wood-burning stove, never mind the effort to chop and stack the wood in the first place. It takes mental effort to remember to check the stove and keep it heating optimally. Central heating, on the other hand, is so easy to use, many of us forget that it’s even a part of the house. We can set it on a program that matches our heating needs and not think about it ever again, unless it breaks down.\nSo, this is the foundation of the Device Paradigm: the process of making goods available in a non-burdensome way. And indeed, this has been precisely the promise of technology since Descartes dreamed about what control of the physical environment would allow humanity to achieve—the elimination of the burdens and dangers that made life disagreeable and unpleasant. This sounds like a reasonable, laudable goal, right? I won’t argue that it’s not. But it’s important to realize two things about it. First of all, this is the very DNA of technology. It’s a philosophical stance at the very core of the technological enterprise. Everything technology touches is going to be shaped according to this philosophy. In that sense, it’s not true that technology is just a neutral tool. It has a definite character, and that character is the continuous attempt to make goods available in a non-burdensome way.\nSecondly, and more importantly, this focus on availability leads inevitably to a rift down the middle of things themselves, a division of a thing into a mechanism and a product. Let’s go back to the example of heating. In pre-technological eras, it wasn’t possible to distinguish a good from the way that good was procured. In the middle of a cold winter, it wasn’t possible to have heat without fire. And it wasn’t possible to have fire without firewood. And it wasn’t possible to gather that firewood without going through the laborious process of chopping up trees. So staying warm was inextricably tied up with this direct physical investment of time and energy.\nBut once we have enough control of nature, we can produce heat without firewood. We can begin to think of heat as a commodity, as something independent of the way that it is produced. And once we do this, we can begin to care progressively less about the way that it is produced, until we wind up with the current situation, where we enjoy central heating in our homes without having any idea how it actually works. And it doesn’t matter. If central heating technology changed tomorrow to use a completely different method of heat production, and someone installed it in our house without telling us, we would never notice. What matters to us is the commodity, the good that is produced.\nLet’s look at another common device as an example: a television. What is the good or commodity that a television provides for us? Well, embedded in a larger cultural system, it’s entertainment or information. But purely as a physical object, the good that it produces is clarity of representation of a moving picture. What we would predict then, on the basis of the Device Paradigm, is that the physical construction of a TV might change radically over the years, while the screen—the part that is most directly related to providing the good (clear representation of a moving picture)—would change in basically one way: becoming even clearer and more prominent. And this is exactly what we find. Early TVs were mostly bulk, with a small, distorted, black-and-white screen. And through a variety of vastly different picture-producing mechanisms, we have gradually evolved to where we are today: Large, flat TVs where it is almost not possible to see anything other than the amazingly-clear screen. We don’t care that our TV set uses liquid crystals rather than vacuum tubes, and if the technology changed tomorrow to something cheaper or easier to manufacture, hardly anyone would even notice.\nThe point that I’ve been trying to make is that devices don’t have a single essence. They have a divided essence: two aspects, or layers. One aspect is the thing the device does for us: its commodity, good, or function. The other aspect is the physical stuff of the device itself: the arrangement of silicon and metal, or whatever, that enables the device to live out its function. Another way of looking at it is that there’s a distinction between means and ends in devices themselves. What the device is for, and how it does what it’s for. This all might seem obvious and natural to us, given that our world is full of devices. But this distinction, this way of looking at things, is actually radically new in the history of humanity. In the pre-technological era, you couldn’t have heat without a stove or fireplace in your room. You couldn’t have music without a musician and an instrument. You couldn’t enjoy a dramatic performance without the actors there in front of you.\nOK, so what? What’s wrong with making the ugly parts of a TV less prominent, and the screen more prominent? And the answer is: nothing. Nothing’s wrong with it. The sole purpose of a TV is to provide a full, clear picture, and so the ideal TV is pure picture and nothing else. The problem comes in when we use technology to make goods available to us which were once delivered through a deep engagement with the natural world or society, and which often brought along intangible or unquantifiable goods with them as part of the process. Let’s go back to the example of the wood-burning stove. It certainly had all the drawbacks that I mentioned before in terms of availability. Compared to a central heating system, chopping wood and keeping it burning in one room of the house is an awful lot of wasted energy and work. But along with the tedium came some benefits. Gathering and chopping wood served as part of the daily rhythm that oriented, that served as a reference point for the rest of the day’s activities. The fact that the heat from the stove was available in only one room of the house meant that the entire family or community would gather in one place for the evening, would experience together whatever that evening held, whether it was reading, music, or discussion.\nOr let’s take another example, that of food. Food is certainly a good that we would like to be more available in the sense I talked about before, and indeed we can make it technologically available to our societies. A frozen TV dinner is probably the easiest example to think about. The promise of a frozen TV dinner is to deliver the twin goods of nutrition and a flavor reminiscent of an actual freshly-prepared meal, but without the inconvenience of growing, harvesting, and cooking the food yourself. It is food turned into a device, instantly available. But of course for most of human history, enjoying the good of a meal was inextricably linked to engagement with the earth through farming, engagement with the community, engagement with the tradition of the culinary arts, and finally celebration and conversation with the others who were also at the table. For the sake of availability, these less quantifiable goods have been replaced by the technological mechanisms that make it possible for TV dinners to exist—industrial agriculture, chemistry, food science, etc\u0026hellip;\nThrough technological innovations like central heating and instant food, we have figured out a way to deliver to ourselves what we thought we always wanted in terms of the goods of heat and food, but as a result of them becoming technological devices, we have ripped them free of the things and practices that used to be necessary for us to enjoy them. And it turns out that some of these things and practices, like manual labor, engagement with and knowledge of the natural world, the skill of cooking, or the celebration of a community, are really important for us as humans.\nThis isn’t the fault of technology, as if technology were some person out there trying to destroy human significance. But the Device Paradigm encourages us to think more and more in terms of means and ends rather than unified wholes, more and more in terms of devices rather than things, more and more in terms of quantifiable commodities rather than qualitative or unquantifiable goods, and more and more in terms of individual consumption rather than collective creativity.\nSo let me bring it back to the Internet of Things. Am I saying that the things in our lives shouldn’t be more connected, that we should stop writing JavaScript to control physical hardware, otherwise we’ll ruin society? No! I’m simply trying to get us to recognize that the driving force of technology, the Device Paradigm, entirely ignores the hard-to-define unquantifiable goods that make up human significance. I want us to ask a few questions before we wave our magic technology wand over something that looks like a problem, to make sure that in solving it, we’re doing so in such a way that leaves us just as human as we were before.\nSpeaking of being human, let’s talk for a minute about the Quantified Self. The technologist Jaron Lanier has a great book called You Are Not a Gadget that I think addresses this topic in a much better way than I can. All I want to say is that I fear the Quantified Self movement will lead to treating human beings as devices rather than persons, rather things in ourselves, and, historically, treating humans as anything other than persons has disastrous consequences. Don’t get me wrong; I love data as much as the next nerd, and I was initially inclined to jump on board this bandwagon. Track my runs so I can create reference points and understand my progress? Track my sleep so I can adjust my life to get better quality rest? Absolutely! And I think these things really are positive. The danger here is that it encourages us to think of ourselves in terms of statistics, in terms of quantifiable information that can be neatly categorized, filtered, and sorted. But we’re not like that. And it encourages us to think of others in that way as well, opening up infinite opportunity for unhelpful and meaningless comparison.\nWe “quantify” ourselves for the sake of software these days in a lot more ways than tracking our bio metrics. Every time we select a choice from a select box on a social networking site, we’re choosing to present a squared-off, low-fidelity version of ourselves. I don’t need to tell you that the common task of choosing a gender from a select box can be an extremely self-limiting experience for many people. But computer programs ask us to circumscribe ourselves in many more subtle ways. Just because it’s convenient for computers to think in terms of binary or mutually exclusive categories, just because it’s convenient for database queries to filter based on pre-set options, doesn’t mean this is a good way to model human identity or relationship. But humans are really good at adapting, and we’ve been really good at adapting to what has been technologically feasible or technologically easy. The result is that we have grown more like computers in our self-understanding and self-description, rather than the other way around. Did it have to be that way? No, I don’t think so. I have hope that once we stop lowering our standards to deal with computers, we’ll develop apps that we’ve put a lot more humanity into, so we can remain human while using them.\nOK. In wrapping up this part of my talk, I want to reiterate that I am a technologist. From the time I was young I was impressed by the power of technology to change the world, and the possibilities for creative expression it opens up, and I still am. I loved writing code to play music on mobile devices last year! I’m not trying to get you guys to stop hacking on connected devices or social networks. What I’m trying to do is to get this community to start looking at technology, not just as a tool, not just as the obvious solution to the world’s problems, but almost as an entity in its own right, that has its own characteristic way of operating. We need to know ourselves before we engage with technology, or we will find ourselves and our creations unwittingly reshaped by it. We need to decide for ourselves what it means to live well as a human being. This is one of the classic questions of philosophy: what is the good life? I’m certainly not going to talk more about it here! I gave some hints along the way of what I think might be involved, and I’d love to engage you all in further conversation about it, but the point is that we need to go down that rabbit hole for at least a little bit if we want to answer the questions I raised about how we go about developing technologies that augment and ennoble human persons, rather than diminishing and demeaning ourselves and our neighbors.\nI wanted to leave you with a concrete experience to accompany the very philosophical nature of this talk. The most symbolic thing I could think of to do was to play a new song for you guys. It’s a song I wrote with the theme of this talk in mind. I wanted to capture the idea that there is something unique about a shared physical experience, especially when it comes to music. Maybe in the future I’ll record this song, and through a number of takes maybe I’ll capture a “perfect” performance. But I think the minor variations and even missed notes in a live performance can combine themselves into an unrepeatable perfection of a totally different kind. That’s what I’d love for you to experience.\nI wrote this song on an instrument I’ve barely ever played before—a Russian instrument called a Domra. Maybe some Russians in the audience can verify that this is actually a Domra! It was given to me as a gift from my dad when I was young, before I even knew how to play guitar, and I never really figured out what to do with it. I got it out a few months ago, and it has a soft, gentle sound that made me want to play it for you guys.\nI’m going to do something a little different during this song. I’m putting a URL on the screen, and I’d love for you all to go there now on your laptops or on your mobile devices. It’s a mini app that asks you to enter one word that describes how you’re feeling (notice that it’s a text field and not a select box!). I thought we could try an experiment together, to make this experience even more unique. As I play the song, submit the words you’ve chosen, and the words will be animated on the screen up here in real time. You can update them in real time as well, so the words can change over the course of the song. I have two simple requests: first, please be honest. Second, please don’t be a troll. I know anonymity on the Internet almost guarantees someone will want to write something obscene, but I have higher expectations of this community. I’d love to have you experience this with me.\n[Song, working title: Planned Obsolescence]\nMy eyes falter, drop their gaze Doubt enfolds me in its haze\nWhen will you come to me? When will I know your name? When will I feel that this is real?\nAll I have are shreds of faith These simulations I have made\nI need a solid truth Planted in solid ground Something I can’t exchange for\nA newer model wrapped in a box Planned obsolescence in my soul, so\nThere is life in our difference Bringing out what I cannot know of myself But the mountains have been laid low And all Others are gone from experience\nThere was a meaning here I swear But I can’t see it any more\nI’m just putting one last slide up with some resources you might want to take a look at if this topic interests you. A couple books I mentioned, as well as my blog, where I write about this stuff periodically. Also, the little Meteor app I created for the live experience is open-source, up on GitHub. Take a look!\nHave a great rest of your conference everyone.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2014/06/internet-of-nothings/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI gave a talk today called \u003cstrong\u003eInternet of Nothings: Technology and Our Relationship With the Things in Our World\u003c/strong\u003e at \u003ca href=\"http://2014.lxjs.org/\"\u003eLXJS\u003c/a\u003e, a JavaScript conference in Lisbon, Portugal. I\u0026rsquo;m excited to have been given the opportunity to talk about the philosophy of technology! There\u0026rsquo;s an embedded video of the talk below, and I\u0026rsquo;ve included the slides, the slightly-edited text of my notes, as well as the lyrics to the song I performed. If you\u0026rsquo;re new to my blog and this topic, I recommend checking out my \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eBlogging Borgmann\u003c/a\u003e series, where I\u0026rsquo;m blogging chapter-by-chapter through a book on the philosophy of technology by Albert Borgmann. Enjoy!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Internet of Nothings"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThis chapter is the first of four on the relationship of technology to social and political issues. Borgmann is trying to argue that we should conceive of and judge society and politics in the light of technology, and that it is in social life or politics that the device paradigm must finally be discussed, since these areas of life are those that receive the most attention. Unfortunately, the fundamental modus operandi of technology is not yet recognized in this sphere.\nWhat is recognized is what we might call the problem of orientation, in other words the widespread feelings of disorientation, ungroundedness, and directionlessness prevalent in modern society. Technology has rendered all points in space and time equal (determined by consumptive intent and consumptive potentiality). This itself flows from the abstract, objective viewpoint of modern science\u0026mdash;science might be able to describe all the places and events with which we interface, but it cannot tell us which is \u0026ldquo;home\u0026rdquo;; it cannot locate meaning for us in a privileged place or time. Of course, this is not a critique of science in general. Rather, it is technology as a social strategy which redraws human experience in this world with no guideposts.\nThe way people address this widely-recognized if poorly-understood malaise is often to, in Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s terms, \u0026ldquo;raise the value question\u0026rdquo;. In other words, it is thought that what is needed to reorient our society is a clarification and perhaps reprioritization of \u0026ldquo;values\u0026rdquo;. According to Borgmann, however, (and laying aside the issue of the multiplicity of values), this strategy is futile in unmasking the device paradigm and showing it for what it is. The problem is that, very often, our discussion of values presupposes the means/ends distinction which is operative as a result of the technological paradigm; from this assumption, technology itself will never be able to be brought into clear relief (as we saw in earlier chapters). In modern education, the ends are what are seen as stable, and the means as radically interchangeable. Thus we have undergone a shift from education as passing down customs or \u0026ldquo;ways of doing things\u0026rdquo; to teaching goal-formulation and practical reason, with the result that tools and practices become mere means rather than vessels of orientation, used in a web of pre-existing meaning.\nUltimately, in this environment, the values we most want to bring to the fore will forever be impossible to formulate. When commoditization potential becomes the measure of whether the means are leading to the ends, the non-quantifiable \u0026ldquo;values\u0026rdquo; will start to dematerialize. As Borgmann puts it, we can measure the number of Big Macs sold, or the number of times a family eats out. But how are we to measure the value of a family meal, prepared with care and celebrated with conversation? So-called \u0026ldquo;focal things\u0026rdquo;, which we encountered earlier as those things which are a source of full-facultied human engagement, cannot be argued for in the \u0026ldquo;values\u0026rdquo; conversation, when it continues to presuppose the paradigm of technology.\nIn this chapter, Borgmann also considers a Marxist critique of modern society, to see whether it fares any better in bringing to light the working of the device paradigm. Ultimately, he disregards the critique as too shallow. On the Marxist story, there is always a definite class with undue power, influence, and wealth. What is really necessary is to divest this class of their privilege and distribute their benefits more equally. (There are of course totally capitalist versions of this thesis, and Borgmann goes into some interesting detail on how this a big part of the social theory underlying much of the latent political understanding in the US.) The problem here is not just that it is questionable whether there is really a definite class who can be thus Robin-Hooded. It is that technology and the device paradigm can be used quite happily towards this goal of \u0026ldquo;equality\u0026rdquo;, all the while continuing the trend of commoditization and disengagement. As long as technology operates in a free and equal manner, the Marxist has no more to say about it; and of course, this disburdenment and equality is part and parcel of the very promise of technology.\nSo, it appears we need more tools or insight to bring an actual discussion of technology into the political and social arena. We begin this task in the next chapter by looking at the concept of \u0026ldquo;liberal democracy\u0026rdquo; (the kind of social theory Borgmann claims is actually operative in the US political system).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2013/12/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-13-technology-and-the-social-order/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis chapter is the first of four on the relationship of technology to social and political issues. Borgmann is trying to argue that we should conceive of and judge society and politics in the light of technology, and that it is in social life or politics that the device paradigm must finally be discussed, since these areas of life are those that receive the most attention. Unfortunately, the fundamental modus operandi of technology is not yet recognized in this sphere.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 13, \"Technology and the Social Order\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nOne of the foundational aims of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s whole book is the attempt to actually give an explanation for technology. Hence we discussed what counts as an explanation in the scientific realm in earlier chapters. In this middle section of the book, Borgmann is concerned to substantiate the notion of the Device Paradigm, not just as a feature of technology but as a way of explaining technology and everything that goes along with it.\nThis chapter is therefore about \u0026ldquo;paradigmatic explanation\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;we have this \u0026ldquo;device paradigm\u0026rdquo;, but what does it mean for this concept to be an explanation of technology? Borgmann begins by summarizing one type of explanation: \u0026ldquo;apodeictic\u0026rdquo; explanation, or the kind used in science. And of course, it is the physical sciences which in our society provide the standard for explanation. But science, Borgmann argues, fails to provide a theory, \u0026ldquo;in the sense of a steady and arresting view of our world\u0026rdquo; (69). Scientific laws may tell us what is possible, but they do not tell us what is relevant. There is, in other words, an overabundance of \u0026ldquo;givenness\u0026rdquo;, of things we could pay attention to or bring into focus or care about. Science itself does not and cannot set that vision for us.\nThe same kind of explanations are sought in the social sciences as in the physical sciences. Borgmann shows a set of pairs that typify this distinction:\nisoughtfactvaluetheoreticalpracticalanalysisadvocacyempiricalnormative\nScientific, apodeictic, subsumptive modes of explanation focus on the first column. But there must then be other kinds of explanation that focus on the second column or the whole picture. Borgmann therefore introduces the concept of \u0026ldquo;deictic\u0026rdquo; explanation, which answers the question \u0026ldquo;What is significant?\u0026rdquo; rather than the question \u0026ldquo;What is?\u0026rdquo; But is there yet a third possibility? Borgmann believes there is: paradigmatic explanation.\nBorgmann defines paradigmatic explanation as \u0026ldquo;explanation by elucidation of a predominant pattern\u0026rdquo;, and says that, compared to apodeictic and deictic modes, this would be considered \u0026ldquo;paradeictic\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;quasi-deictic\u0026rdquo;, since it does not shy away from looking at patterns that bleed into the second column above, patterns that are used as a guide to sort out the world. Combined with the concept of a paradigm, we are talking of using concrete examples of patterns to prove the existence of a larger, overriding pattern.\nSo the Device Paradigm, as paradigmatic explanation, is designed to bring into relief the force that \u0026ldquo;more and more detaches us from the persons, things, and practices that used to engage and grace us in their own right\u0026rdquo; (76). From a historical perspective, this is the story of life being seen as toil, poverty, and suffering, and technology entering the scene as natural science promising to transform our experience and liberate us. The deep irony is then that disburdenment becomes disengagement.\nSo what examples can we use as paradigms to bring to light the pattern above? Well, we have already considered many of them. A fireplace becomes a central heating system. A wagon becomes an automobile. A meal becomes a TV dinner. The pattern here is of Things (objects which have depth as a result of being part of the web of human significance) becoming Commodities (wherein the main benefit they provide is stripped from the thing itself and made available).\nWhen we build up from these paradigm cases, Borgmann claims, and if we are at all concerned about the disengagement characteristic of modern life, then the Device Paradigm provides an extremely clear explanation for how technology serves as an \u0026ldquo;implicit guiding pattern for the transformation of this world\u0026rdquo;.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2013/12/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-12-paradigmatic-explanation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the foundational aims of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s whole book is the attempt to actually give an explanation for technology. Hence we discussed what counts as an explanation in the scientific realm in \u003ca href=\"/2011/12/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-5-scientific-explanation/\"\u003eearlier\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/2011/12/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-6-the-scope-of-scientific-explanation/\"\u003echapters\u003c/a\u003e. In this middle section of the book, Borgmann is concerned to substantiate the notion of the Device Paradigm, not just as a feature of technology but as a way of explaining technology and everything that goes along with it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 12, \"Paradigmatic Explanation\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThe point of this chapter, according to Borgmann, is to provide more rigor around what has thus far been an intuitive account of the device paradigm. He begins with the question of whether there are any competing analyses of it on offer. In fact, critiques of what might be considered technology have been around since the time of, say, the introduction of the steam engine. For critics of this period, the symbol of technology was the \u0026ldquo;machine\u0026rdquo; they saw altering the landscape around them. The steam engine was ambivalent: it was powerful and convenient, but also \u0026ldquo;ravenous\u0026rdquo;, consuming land, resources, and quiet. Writers of this persuasion, Borgmann claims, framed their arguments in terms of a means/end imbalance, where the danger was that our technological means (the machines) might unwittingly become our ends. (The solution would then be to correct this balance.)\nA more recent critic, Hannah Arendt, criticizes technology on the basis of a different distinction than means vs. ends. She counterposes two perspectives on the story of human life: the first is characterized as \u0026ldquo;work and action\u0026rdquo;, and the second as \u0026ldquo;labor and consumption\u0026rdquo;. What \u0026ldquo;work and action\u0026rdquo; means is a bit vague, but the point is that both work and action are noble and humanizing pursuits. What is available to us in our technological age, however, is \u0026ldquo;labor and consumption\u0026rdquo;, that is, the essence of work as unpleasant toil which merely provides the resources for a consumptive existence. Both halves of this second mode contribute to a lack of meaning and are dehumanizing.\nBorgmann\u0026rsquo;s reaction to Arendt is measured; he appreciates the argument but thinks there is a better distinction to be had, one based on the technological goal of \u0026ldquo;disburdenment\u0026rdquo;. I take it that he means there is a distinction between two perspectives on life: one (the technological) based on the idea of continual and progressive disburdenment, and another (Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s) based on some other paradigm (yet to be disclosed).\nBorgmann\u0026rsquo;s reaction to the means/end arguments is somewhat more lively, in that he repudiates it as granting too much ground already. Modern proponents of this kind of argument claim that our technological means have not so much become our ends as overrun our ends, bringing about what Borgmann calls \u0026ldquo;reverse adaptation\u0026rdquo;, wherein the technological possibilities are so expansive we adapt our ends to the shape they give reality, rather than vice versa. While not false, framing the discussion in this way leaves it open for the thoughtful technologist to respond that yes, this is a problem, and what is needed is simply a clarification of our ends! What goes unnoticed here is that everyone is inclined to view the state of affairs from within this distinction of means vs. ends, which itself is in fact new, and is itself a product of the rise of technology. One way of talking about the device paradigm on this view is that technology is also in the business of radically redefining our goals or ends. But Borgmann goes beyond this and quotes Thomas Carlyle to the effect that we actually do violence to things when we divide them into means and ends.\nAnd unfortunately this is precisely what the device paradigm encourages us to do: \u0026ldquo;We must recognize that the reduction of the fullness of phenomena in technological measurement and assessment is no more alarming than the common attenuation of the depth of things to commodious surfaces\u0026rdquo; (61). In other words, this classification of means and ends is a philosophical reflection of the overall pattern of technology, which splits things themselves down the middle, into commodious surfaces on one side and black boxes that produce the commodities on the other. This is deeply worrying, because \u0026ldquo;commodities allow no engagement and atrophy the fullness of our capacities\u0026rdquo; (62).\nSo, in sum, others have seen the device paradigm in action and traced its outline, but Borgmann is unsatisfied with other analyses of it, especially when they use the means/ends distinction, which itself is part of what he claims needs to be analysed. Instead, Borgmann wants to give a \u0026ldquo;paradigmatic\u0026rdquo; explanation; what exactly that means and how it works will be the subject of the next chapter.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2013/05/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-11-devices-means-and-machines/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe point of this chapter, according to Borgmann, is to provide more rigor around what has thus far been an intuitive account of the device paradigm. He begins with the question of whether there are any competing analyses of it on offer. In fact, critiques of what might be considered technology have been around since the time of, say, the introduction of the steam engine. For critics of this period, the symbol of technology was the \u0026ldquo;machine\u0026rdquo; they saw altering the landscape around them. The steam engine was ambivalent: it was powerful and convenient, but also \u0026ldquo;ravenous\u0026rdquo;, consuming land, resources, and quiet. Writers of this persuasion, Borgmann claims, framed their arguments in terms of a means/end imbalance, where the danger was that our technological means (the machines) might unwittingly become our ends. (The solution would then be to correct this balance.)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 11, \"Devices, Means, and Machines\""},{"content":"A poem I wrote after watching the election coverage last night. There was a lot of happiness and heartbreak for two political parties. But who are the real winners and losers in this hyped-up sporting event for \u0026ldquo;the greatest country on Earth\u0026rdquo;? Who stands outside the door while we spend billions lionizing/demonizing politicians?\nBring me your tired and your poor But not too close. Stand just there and watch The winds of freedom dance Through our summer party Our honored guests arrive on time One lion, one demon Which will we choose this year? Let\u0026#39;s play the fool\u0026#39;s charade As if it mattered For edging down the knife of time Is hard enough sober And lions and demons exchange Their masks so rapidly Who dares even try? Now the winds stir the leaves The debt of freedom A hint of invisible winter But the show must go on! Shut eyes, dance faster Laughter turns to drunk dismay Freedom\u0026#39;s angry flood The pitiless pitied above all Drink and life sunk below memory The outcasts looking on. But not too close. ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/11/election-night/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA poem I wrote after watching the election coverage last night. There was a lot of happiness and heartbreak for two political parties. But who are the real winners and losers in this hyped-up sporting event for \u0026ldquo;the greatest country on Earth\u0026rdquo;? Who stands outside the door while we spend billions lionizing/demonizing politicians?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"highlight\"\u003e\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\" style=\"color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4;-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;\"\u003e\u003ccode class=\"language-fallback\" data-lang=\"fallback\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBring me your tired and your poor\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    But not too close.\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStand just there and watch\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe winds of freedom dance\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    Through our summer party\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOur honored guests arrive on time\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    One lion, one demon\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhich will we choose this year?\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLet\u0026#39;s play the fool\u0026#39;s charade\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    As if it mattered\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor edging down the knife of time\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    Is hard enough sober\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd lions and demons exchange\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTheir masks so rapidly\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    Who dares even try?\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow the winds stir the leaves\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    The debt of freedom\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA hint of invisible winter\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut the show must go on!\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    Shut eyes, dance faster\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLaughter turns to drunk dismay\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    Freedom\u0026#39;s angry flood\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe pitiless pitied above all\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDrink and life sunk below memory\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    The outcasts looking on.\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e    But not too close.\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Election Night"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nIn this chapter, Borgmann explores what he calls the Foreground of technology. This is essentially the world of the use (i.e., consumption) of technological devices, rather than the world of their construction or operation. As we are all aware, technology results in a large set of commodities, and the \u0026ldquo;Foreground\u0026rdquo; is the world of their consumption. The Foreground is invoked, Borgmann says, when conversation turns to the topics of \u0026ldquo;leisure, consumption, or the standard of living\u0026rdquo; (48).\nThe Device Paradigm is key to understanding the Foreground, since it explicitly describes the delineation between Foreground and Background through the distinction between a piece of technological machinery and the commodity that machinery is designed to produce. Interestingly, it is not just in \u0026ldquo;machines\u0026rdquo; that we see this pattern operating, but also in nature, culture, and other areas of human life. Wine, for example, has been slowly converted to a device, according to the definition of a device under the Device Paradigm. Rather than being something which is an unanalyzable whole, inseparable from its physical and cultural context, we now think of wine dualistically. One on hand it is the collection of chemicals which constitute its physical structure. On the other hand, it is a collection of color, odor, viscosity, and taste properties. What Borgmann claims is that because of the technological advances in winemaking, we are free to focus on one (the commodity, or foreground, of wine-stimuli) as consumers, while ignoring the other (the particular physical characteristics of the wine, which can be tweaked just so in order to provide the desired commodity). It used to be the case that a particular wine would \u0026ldquo;open up\u0026rdquo; a world\u0026mdash;the world of its soil, its country, its experiences, etc\u0026hellip;\u0026mdash;but when features of wine are free to vary independent of context, that world is no longer opened up. We are experiencing the mere commodity, at that point, of a technological device.\nBorgmann points out that this state of affairs is not a result of modern science. As noted in a previous chapter, science renders physical phenomena clear and more knowable, but it does not by itself provide a pattern for action. The pattern which is responsible for the shift in our approach to wine is a result instead of the Device Paradigm. Of course, science is necessary for all of this to take place, but it is not the root cause of it. Borgmann sees the new situation with wine as an example of a general trend, that from a taste for \u0026rsquo;things\u0026rsquo; to a taste for \u0026lsquo;commodities\u0026rsquo;. We are, essentially, focusing on the pleasing surface elements of things while disregarding everything else, which paves the way for those things to be replaced by devices.\nAnother clear example is that of frozen meals\u0026mdash;they are essentially aggregates of commodities, not things connected to specific places, people, seasons, times, and experiences, the way meals unavoidably were in pre-technological settings. Interestingly, they are presented to us as though they were connected in this way, which brings up a major aspect of the Foreground of technology, namely advertisement. It is such a part of our age that Daniel Boorsin has called it \u0026ldquo;the characteristic rhetoric of democracy\u0026rdquo; (52). Borgmann is careful to say that our consumer culture isn\u0026rsquo;t the effect of advertising, but the other way around: advertising is necessary for a consumer culture, and that in turn is simply the outworking of the promise of technology (i.e., consumption is the natural mode in an abundance of commodities). Borgmann quotes several authors who discuss precisely what advertising is, making interesting points along the way about the nature of commodities. Borgmann himself wants to be clear that what makes something a commodity is not a psychological fact (i.e., how a certain person approaches something like a TV dinner), but rather an ontological fact (i.e., the product\u0026rsquo;s construction and structure, or how it conforms to the Device Paradigm).\nAdvertising is then a classically Foreground activity, since it is designed to make us aware of the commodious aspects of devices. It does use traditional modes of engagement as a kind of fuel, in order for the surface aspects of the commodity to connect with our desires or, commonly, nostalgia. Thus the pictures on the boxes of TV dinners show the meal presented in a traditional context, on a table, surrounded by fine dining implements or fresh vegetables, even though the actual product is completely dissimilar to that picture. Borgmann asks the question of how tenuous these links can become before the fuel of tradition is exhausted. It\u0026rsquo;s a question not so much of similarity or dissimilarity but of how much we end up caring about things vs commodities. Another way to look at the question is to ask whether a completely simulated experience which differs in no way from the \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; equivalent is any less desirable than the real thing. Increasingly, the attitude in our culture is that there is no difference. As Borgmann says on p. 56:\nWhat is philosophically remarkable and evident even now is that there is a widespread and easy acceptance of equivalence between commodities and things even where the experiential differences are palpable. People who have traveled through Glacier Park in an air-conditioned motor home, listening to soft background music and having a cup of coffee, would probably answer affirmatively and without qualification when asked if they knew the park, had been in the park, or had been through the park. Such people have not felt the wind of the mountains, have not smelled the pines, have not heard the red-tailed hawk, have not sensed the slopes in their legs and lungs, have not experienced the cycle of day and night in the wilderness. The experience has not been richer than one gained from a well-made film viewed in suburban Chicago.\nIf the ends are all that matter, and if the ends result in equivalent mental states, then it will indeed be increasingly difficult to find any reason to have a \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; experience over a commoditized or simulated one. There are, Borgmann points out, counter-movements, among which he lists \u0026ldquo;voluntary simplicity\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;arts \u0026amp; crafts\u0026rdquo;, and, interestingly, \u0026ldquo;running\u0026rdquo; (which, when he wrote in 1984, was much less of a cultural fad than it is today!). Almost 30 years after he wrote, I think we can see even more clearly the distinction between these two types of movements, along with various interesting ways people have tried to combine them (e.g., the fascination with \u0026rsquo;local\u0026rsquo; foods and products, but the simultaneous application of industrial, technological viewpoints to their growth and adoption via social media or other means).\nIn the next chapter, we\u0026rsquo;ll take a step closer to the Background of technology and examine devices and machines more philosophically.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/08/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-10-the-foreground-of-technology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this chapter, Borgmann explores what he calls the \u003cstrong\u003eForeground\u003c/strong\u003e of technology. This is essentially the world of the use (i.e., consumption) of technological devices, rather than the world of their construction or operation. As we are all aware, technology results in a large set of commodities, and the \u0026ldquo;Foreground\u0026rdquo; is the world of their consumption. The Foreground is invoked, Borgmann says, when conversation turns to the topics of \u0026ldquo;leisure, consumption, or the standard of living\u0026rdquo; (48).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 10, \"The Foreground of Technology\""},{"content":"In 2006, I started a tradition with myself of making a summer of music compilation for my friends, called Summer of Rock. Every year for four years I collected my favorite, most sunny, most rocking new songs, and mixed them with a good dose of love into these compilations. The last few years, life was crazy, and the task of finding new music too daunting, to continue the tradition. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to say that this period of drought has ended, and I\u0026rsquo;m excited to offer for your listening pleasure Summer of Rock 2012.\nIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t easy to create this year\u0026rsquo;s compilation. Pressure to find really awesome music has built up over the last few years, and I felt I had to make sure each song deserved a spot in your summer mix. Moreover, my desire to not repeat artists from previous editions of the compilation kept some obviously awesome tracks out of the running. So much of my new music is from artists I already know and love, it was difficult to leave all of this out of the record. Then there are the other emotional and philsophical problems any music compiler must face. What is the theme of this compilation? (Well, \u0026ldquo;Summer\u0026rdquo;, obviously\u0026hellip;). If it\u0026rsquo;s called Summer of \u0026ldquo;Rock\u0026rdquo;, can I include \u0026ldquo;pop\u0026rdquo; music? I was a bit distressed to find that, in fact, this album might more accurately be called \u0026ldquo;Summer of Indie Pop\u0026rdquo;. I\u0026rsquo;m not wild about such a title, however, and in keeping with the hipster spirit of Indie Pop, we could pretend to use the word \u0026ldquo;Rock\u0026rdquo; with a healthy dose of irony. That being said, I think there are enough moments of rock here to get your head banging a little bit. Anyway, let\u0026rsquo;s keep in mind the main point: awesome music to go along with your summer memories and to make road trips more exciting.\nAll of the foregoing duly noted, waste no time in getting the album:\nDownload Summer of Rock 2012 (or, if you prefer Spotify, check out the playlist).\nTo listen, just drag the unzipped folder into iTunes, and it will add it as a compilation to your library.\nThe track listing for this summer\u0026rsquo;s mix, which I had great pleasure in arranging, is as follows:\n\u0026ldquo;Diversity\u0026rdquo;, by Family Of The Year (from Loma Vista) \u0026ldquo;Little Talks\u0026rdquo;, by Of Monsters and Men (from My Head Is an Animal) \u0026ldquo;We Are The Tide\u0026rdquo;, by Blind Pilot (from We Are The Tide) \u0026ldquo;Deer In The Headlights\u0026rdquo;, by Owl City (from All Things Bright And Beautiful) \u0026ldquo;L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.\u0026rdquo;, by Noah and the Whale (from Last Night on Earth) \u0026ldquo;Here We Are\u0026rdquo;, by Patrick Park (from Everyone\u0026rsquo;s in Everyone) \u0026ldquo;All Arise!\u0026rdquo;, by The Decemberists (from The King Is Dead) \u0026ldquo;Face It\u0026rdquo;, by Old Canes (from Early Morning Hymns) \u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t Try and Hide It\u0026rdquo;, by The Dodos (from No Color) \u0026ldquo;Santa Fe\u0026rdquo;, by Beirut (from The Rip Tide) \u0026ldquo;Down In The Valley\u0026rdquo;, by The Head And The Heart (from The Head And The Heart) \u0026ldquo;Evelyn\u0026rdquo;, by Gregory Alan Isakov (from This Empty Northern Hemisphere) \u0026ldquo;Ho Hey\u0026rdquo;, by The Lumineers (from The Lumineers) \u0026ldquo;Some Nights\u0026rdquo;, by Fun. (from Some Nights) \u0026ldquo;On Top Of The World\u0026rdquo;, by Imagine Dragons (from Continued Silence EP) \u0026ldquo;We Went Wild\u0026rdquo;, by Lord Huron (from Into The Sun EP) \u0026ldquo;Bury Us Alive\u0026rdquo;, by Starfucker (from Reptilians) \u0026ldquo;Naked Kids\u0026rdquo;, by Grouplove (from Never Trust A Happy Song) \u0026ldquo;Stuck (Inside My Head)\u0026rdquo;, by The Graduate (from Only Every Time) \u0026ldquo;A Pound of Flesh\u0026rdquo;, by Radical Face (from The Family Tree: The Roots) \u0026ldquo;Anna Sun\u0026rdquo;, by Walk the Moon (from Walk The Moon) \u0026ldquo;Voyager Reprise\u0026rdquo;, by Surfer Blood (from Tarot Classics) Is this your first exposure to Summer of Rock? Feel free to download the last installment as well: Summer of Rock 2009.\nLegal notice: these songs are provided for you to listen to as a trial only\u0026mdash;if you find yourself liking the music, please go out and buy these albums, either directly from the artist or through your favorite music store. Happy listening, and happy Summer!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/07/summer-of-rock-2012/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Summer-of-Rock-2012\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003eIn 2006, I started a tradition with myself of making a summer of music compilation for my friends, called \u003cem\u003eSummer of Rock\u003c/em\u003e. Every year for four years I collected my favorite, most sunny, most rocking new songs, and mixed them with a good dose of love into these compilations. The last few years, life was crazy, and the task of finding new music too daunting, to continue the tradition. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to say that this period of drought has ended, and I\u0026rsquo;m excited to offer for your listening pleasure \u003cem\u003eSummer of Rock 2012\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Summer of Rock 2012"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nWith chapter 9 we come to one of the most important chapters of TCCL. In it Borgmann elucidates the Device Paradigm, which is his way of explaining technology by reference to paradigmatic examples of it. The idea is that through a careful analysis of several obvious examples of technological devices, discussed in contrast to the pretechnological situation, we will begin to see the pattern which heretofore was invisible, hidden as it was behind the veil of being taken for granted.\nAs we have seen, Borgmann claims technology seeks to provide liberation and enrichment, i.e., to make these qualities available. Availability is therefore a big part of technology. Technological availability has four essential qualities (which Borgmann explores via the contrast between a central heating system and a wood-burning stove). For something to be technologically available, according to Borgmann, it must be:\nInstantaneous: The fire in a stove is not instantaneous because wood is not instantly available in burnable form. It comes in the form of trees which must be chopped down, cut up, etc\u0026hellip; On the other hand, a central heating system procures heat instantaneously, with the sliding of a switch or dial. Ubiquitous: A wood fire is not ubiquitous because it does not heat a given area evenly; a stove typically only heated one room of the house. A modern heating system, however, pumps heat wherever it is needed without any extra effort. Safe: Wood fires are not safe, since one might be injured while cutting wood, or burned by flames, or the house itself might burn down. Central heating systems are much more safe and reliable. Easy: All the work required to produce and maintain a stove fire clearly rules out its being easy. The central heating system, on the other hand, requires no work at all on the part of beneficiary of the heat. These contrasts help to sharpen the outline of an important distinction: the distinction between things and devices. Let\u0026rsquo;s first understand the concept of \u0026rsquo;thing\u0026rsquo;. A \u0026rsquo;thing\u0026rsquo; is inseparable from its context. Its world is therefore inseparable from our engagement with it, and this engagement is always a bodily and social one. Because of this inherent embeddedness, things always provide more than one commodity. Take the example of the wood-burning stove\u0026mdash;it furnishes much more than mere warmth. It is first of all a focus for people, a center for activity. Its status reflects the stage of the day (from embers to flames and back again). It assigns to different family members different tasks (gathering sticks, chopping wood, stoking the fire, etc\u0026hellip;). It provides bodily engagement through forcing one to go outside, to interact physically with trees and wood, and so on. It requires exertion and the learning and passing on of skills. Larger social contexts are sustained by and focused in things (meals, celebrations of major life events, etc\u0026hellip;). As Borgmann says:\nPhysical engagement is not simply physical contact but the experience of the world through the manifold sensibility of the body. That sensibility is sharpened and strengthened in skill. Skill is intensive and refined world-engagement. Skill, in turn, is bound up with social engagement\u0026mdash;it molds the person and gives the person character (42).\nA \u0026lsquo;device\u0026rsquo;, by contrast, procures a good without the world of relationships we just saw exists with \u0026rsquo;things\u0026rsquo;. \u0026ldquo;A device such as a central heating plant procures mere warmth and disburdens us of all other elements. These are taken over by the machinery of the device. The machinery makes no demands on our skill, strength, or attention\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; (42). Devices therefore have a tendency to shrink or background themselves to the point of becoming invisible, since all that matters is the commodity they are procuring, and the less a device burdens us, even visually, with the machinery that does the procuring, the better. The only physical properties which are important are therefore those which relate to the specific function of the device. (Borgmann defines a \u0026lsquo;commodity\u0026rsquo; informally as \u0026ldquo;what the device is there for\u0026rdquo;, i.e., warmth in the case of a heating system, music in the case of a stereo, a meal in the case of a microwave dinner, etc\u0026hellip;)\nIt follows from all this that any device can have many functional equivalents, since a device is defined functionally in relation to the commodity it procures. Take the example of a TV: old, bulky sets were eventually reduced to picture-only flat-screens. The commodity (i.e., the moving picture) was maximized and the machinery minimized. There have also been vast improvements in availability (in terms of time, place, and variety of content): first video cassettes, then cable, then DVR technology, and finally Netflix-style programming, available instantly from any connected device. The point is that this radical division between means and ends is one of the hallmarks of a device. In practice, the ends (e.g., warmth, or a moving picture) are stable, whereas the means are free to vary in any way that improves delivery of the commodity. Borgmann points out that this encourages a concealment (or backgrounding) of the means (which to the consumer are irrelevant and burdensome) and a prominence (or foregrounding) of the ends. \u0026ldquo;A commodity is truly available when it can be enjoyed as a mere end, unencumbered by means\u0026rdquo; (44).\nMuch of Chapter 9 is devoted to a case study, from the turn of the 20th century. The data comes from English wheelwright George Sturt, who wrote with surprising clarity of the changes underfoot as a result of industrialization. One of his most captivating passages is on the changing relationship of the craftsperson to nature. His was a philosophy of cultivating, adapting to land, in contrast to the more destructive industrial methodology. Wheelwrights, Sturt says, had a \u0026ldquo;relationship not of domination but of mastery\u0026rdquo; (44), echoing Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s statements about skill and engagement, and presaging an all-too real future where domination became the norm. Unfortunately, it would be too much for this entry to dive into those interesting passages more fully!\nBack to Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s claim: it is that, given the clear distinctions we have been able to draw between things and devices, devices \u0026ldquo;dissolve the coherent and engaging character of the pre-technological world of things\u0026rdquo; (47). In other words, in the pre-technological world, commodities were never procured without some kind of engagement. Devices blast through this bond and deliver commodities with fewer and fewer modes of engagement with anything other than the ends (commodities) themselves. Borgmann considers two objections to this claim.\nThe first objection is that the \u0026lsquo;concealment of machinery\u0026rsquo; we see with devices is really due to ignorance on the part of the consumer, or maybe technological illiteracy, and not to the character of the device itself. In fact, Borgmann says, many technological devices are made specifically so that they cannot be engaged with by their consumers, either in the case of discardable products (made to be thrown away), carefree products (such as plastic or stainless steel, made so that no harm can come to them), or in the case of highly complicated devices like computers, where their precise realizations are too complicated and/or in flux to be known by very many people.\nThe second objection is that, wait a second, people are actually engaged with the machinery of devices, and not just their ends, aren\u0026rsquo;t they?. Don\u0026rsquo;t people drive cars? Don\u0026rsquo;t they use computers to install software? Don\u0026rsquo;t they program remote controllers? Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s response is that these are not examples of engagement in a skillful, bodily, or social way. Programming a remote control is an entirely cerebral excercise: it admits of no skill, care, or bodily engagement.* It is furthermore anonymous, in that it does not disclose anything about its creator (or manufacturer) or reveal an orientation in nature, the way that a hand-carved chair reveals something both about the craftsperson who made it and about nature, through the specific qualities of the wood and its form.\nBorgmann claims that, while everyone in a technological society understands that the means are important, they can and do spend their time enjoying the ends quite independently of them. And here Borgmann sees a tight connection with a modern understanding of labor and leisure, where labor is equated with the machinery or means of the good life, and leisure is seen as the ends which are to be enjoyed and which define that good life. But for a discussion of society, labor, and the good life, we will have to wait for the second half of Part Two!\n*My own personal view is that some technological pursuits, like certain kinds of computer programming, do allow skillful engagement in a deep way, even though they are entirely cerebral (being perhaps analogous to writing stories).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/05/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-9-the-device-paradigm/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith chapter 9 we come to one of the most important chapters of \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e. In it Borgmann elucidates the Device Paradigm, which is his way of explaining technology by reference to paradigmatic examples of it. The idea is that through a careful analysis of several obvious examples of technological devices, discussed in contrast to the pretechnological situation, we will begin to see the pattern which heretofore was invisible, hidden as it was behind the veil of being taken for granted.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 9, \"The Device Paradigm\""},{"content":"I rise. It is a feast day, a holy day. I blink sleep away and begin to prepare a special savory treat to commemorate the end of the traditional annual fast. Outside the window I see a man walk by, his body making jerky lunges in random directions, seemingly at war with specters. His mind is shackled by some demon or other, and awareness of his prison lessens the savoriness of my treat slightly.\nMy wife and I have been invited to a temple where this holy day is celebrated, the day which proclaims that death is only a hiccup of our existence. We walk to the temple amidst a sleeping city which has not altered its pattern for the sake of today\u0026rsquo;s holiness. Closer to the temple, we observe disciples in expensive clothing (a tradition I do not understand) making their way to the entrance, where we are all greeted by smiling acolytes who hand us papers on which are inscribed the details of today\u0026rsquo;s ceremony. Inside is a joyous throng of worshippers, eating more savory treats, drinking a bitter, black tea, and greeting their friends. The fine clothing is impressive, but more so the beautiful faces and radiant smiles of the crowd. In stark contrast with the streets outside the temple, there are no demons to be seen here, just the medley of colorful garments and the exuberance of the end of the fast.\nThe ceremony begins and we hurry to find our place in the giant indoor amphitheater. Hundreds, if not thousands, have come to celebrate this holy day, and all faces are now focused on one priest on a central stage (he is dressed like a successful merchant). He lifts his hands and calls upon the divine presence, then cedes the stage to a differently-accoutred priest holding an instrument like a lute. This second priest leads various musicians as well as the gathered audience in songs written for this annual feast. But for the words which are sung and the clothing of the audience, I would struggle to know whether I am in a temple or a house of music where the traveling bards play less holy music upon a similar stage.\nSoon, a third priest (the high priest of this temple, also dressed like a merchant) takes the stage in order to deliver a speech, after the fashion of this temple and others like it. The speech reminds me of the debates of the University, if they (in foolishness) had only one participant, and if others present were mute. The audience listens in silence, and thus it is difficult for me to discern whether the priest\u0026rsquo;s speech is being met with agreement or not (as this seems to be the point of it). I see that his heart is pure in his belief, but true to his choice of clothing he wields logic like a merchant. In his effort to convince those of the throng who do not yet belong to the temple to adopt its hopes, he makes several points, and I wonder if anyone has chosen to change his mind as a result.\nMy own mind wanders to the story which this day celebrates, about the man who died and then was raised by divine power back to life. The high priest in his speech reminded us that the news of that man\u0026rsquo;s new life was couriered by women (in a society where they were considered insignificant). I ponder the honor given to these women in the story as my wife shares in whisper an irony: the cadre of priests at this temple consists entirely of men! So much for women bearing good news.\nI am brought back to the ceremony as the cadence of the high priest\u0026rsquo;s lecture signifies that he is about to finish. The next ritual is one with which I am familiar, though at this temple it is also rife with irony. Led by yet one more priest, it re-enacts another part of the story of the resurrected man, where, at dinner with his friends, he uses bread and wine to prophesy his death. Owing to the size of the crowd, the re-enactment looks more like a display of martial discipline than a meal. Small wafers and tiny cups of sweet wine are delivered with impressive efficiency, and the worshippers swallow the bland morsels as the musicians play music designed to inspire contemplation. Truly, the music is more reminiscent of the intimacy of that first meal than the small food bits which are intended to symbolize it.\nFor my reflection, I contemplate death. I contemplate my fear of it and search for that seed within my belly that says death will not be the end of me. I contemplate the story of the man who was raised from the dead, and wonder at its place in history and what it means if it really happened. I contemplate the beauty of the gathered worshippers contrasted with the ugliness of the streets outside. I contemplate a world that doesn\u0026rsquo;t know what to do with death (physical or psychological), and so inflicts it on others, runs from it, or denies its reality altogether through a steadfast focus on present pleasure. This contemplation submerges me into the deep pool of longing which has always existed in the center of my being, and I am moved in wordless ways.\nThe amphitheater emerges back into view as the high priest returns to the stage to intone a farewell benediction, accompanied by more music. He then directs those in the audience who are parents to collect their children from a holding area. I realize for the first time that, despite the varied ages of the disciples, no children were present during the ceremony. I can only imagine that they were sequestered so as not to be bothersome, or perhaps because children are thought not to be able to understand the high priest\u0026rsquo;s lecture.\nAfter the ceremony, we make our way to the temple doors, passing clumps of worshippers (organized by some social principle or other) discussing various topics unrelated to the rituals of the temple. Back on the streets of the city, the people we pass seem to be going about their business in ignorance of the day\u0026rsquo;s holiness, particularly those who, being deformed and unable to work, beg for money. Without further event (save for seeing several citizens wearing masks with the ears of a hare, presumably about to act in a comedy) we arrived home and began to prepare the traditional feast: a combination of morning and mid-day foods.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/04/observations-of-the-customs-of-a-certain-temple-on-a-certain-feast-day/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI rise. It is a feast day, a holy day. I blink sleep away and begin to prepare a special savory treat to commemorate the end of the traditional annual fast. Outside the window I see a man walk by, his body making jerky lunges in random directions, seemingly at war with specters. His mind is shackled by some demon or other, and awareness of his prison lessens the savoriness of my treat slightly.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Observations of the Customs of a Certain Temple on a Certain Feast Day"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nThis chapter begins Part 2 (The Character of Technology), the first half of which (chs 8-12) aims to describe and articulate the paradigm of technology, and the second half of which (chs 13-16) aims to ask how we have come to terms with technology politically and socially. The thesis which Borgmann will be following throughout is that technology, as the characteristic way we engage with the world, is guided by a basic pattern. This pattern, however, like many deeply ingrained patterns, can be impossible to see. This is essentially the observation that the features of our worldviews which are fundamental (in the \u0026ldquo;background\u0026rdquo;, so to speak) are themselves not open to our introspection without some serious effort.\nThat effort for Borgmann is put to use in returning to the first articulations of technology. They go back to the founding event of modernity: the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was the original modern liberation movement, and thus technology (as a liberating force) is usually seen as a corollary of it; Borgmann claims, to the contrary, that technology is a primary current in that stream. Descartes, for example, calls out technology as an obvious tool of intellectual liberation, describing its potential for self-determination (making us \u0026ldquo;masters and possessors of nature\u0026rdquo;), for freedom from labor, and for freedom to enjoy one\u0026rsquo;s faculties.\nThe proper grounding of this vision was not seen until the middle of the 19th century, however. Before that, machines and efficiency multiplied, but with a corresponding degree of toil and misery. Eventually, industrialized nations saw the fruits of the new technological order, and strong arguments indeed can be made for the disburdening character of technology (disburdening us from disease, hard manual labor, etc\u0026hellip;).\nThis promise of technology (of self-determination and freedom) is reiterated constantly in all kinds of social and political rhetoric. The implication is that the mature technology of an advanced industrial society is continuous with the liberating technology which, for example, helped more and more people survive and do business in North American winters. Borgmann doesn\u0026rsquo;t take this for granted, and offers modern advertising as an example of the macabre and seemingly trivial ends to which technology is now put. Marketers selling us \u0026ldquo;world-class cuisine\u0026rdquo; without leaving home (through the use of the microwave) seems somehow hollow when put next to vaccinations of serious diseases.\nSo, we can ask several questions about the promise of technology. Can technology be successful in delivering this promise, even on its own terms? Will it impose new burdens to replace the old (a pernicious irony which can be seen quite clearly in the traffic jam, for example). Can it fulfill its promise in a just way, without merely sweeping toil under the rug of the developing nations? And finally, is the promise well-conceived and worth keeping to begin with?\nThe promise presents the character of technology in broad outline. It is essentially \u0026ldquo;the general procurement of liberty and propserity in the principled and effective manner that is derived from modern science\u0026rdquo; (39). But is this outline too broad? Does it allow for technology to descend into meaningless \u0026ldquo;improvements\u0026rdquo;? As Borgmann says, \u0026ldquo;Initial genuine feats of liberation appear to be continuous with the procurement of frivolous comfort\u0026rdquo; (39). If this is the case, it is perhaps worrying.\nAt any rate, Borgmann agrees that we could spend much fruitful time looking at the history of the promise of technology (through e.g. Heidegger), but in this book we\u0026rsquo;ll be moving on to the contemporary analysis. This will begin in earnest with the next chapter, \u0026ldquo;The Device Paradigm\u0026rdquo;, which is one of the central chapters of the book. Until then\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/02/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-8-the-promise-of-technology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis chapter begins Part 2 (The Character of Technology), the first half of which (chs 8-12) aims to describe and articulate the paradigm of technology, and the second half of which (chs 13-16) aims to ask how we have come to terms with technology politically and socially. The thesis which Borgmann will be following throughout is that technology, as the characteristic way we engage with the world, is guided by a basic pattern. This pattern, however, like many deeply ingrained patterns, can be impossible to see. This is essentially the observation that the features of our worldviews which are fundamental (in the \u0026ldquo;background\u0026rdquo;, so to speak) are themselves not open to our introspection without some serious effort.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 8, \"The Promise of Technology\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nAt this point in our exploration of the relationship between modern science and technology, what can we say with confidence? First, that modern science shows us that the world exists in a large matrix of possible states of affairs. The space of these possibilities is defined by the world\u0026rsquo;s initial conditions: given some physical state of affairs in the past, our world is one of its possible subsequent states. Technology can then be seen to \u0026ldquo;[reflect] a determination to act transformatively on these possibilities\u0026rdquo; (27). In other words, science tells us what\u0026rsquo;s physically possible and through technology we decide to act on them in order to change the world. In these roles, both science and technology share a problem: there is no principled way, using only their own resources, to decide what to explain or what to transform.\nTo illustrate this, we can return to our example of winemaking. Modern science makes the process of fermentation more and more perspicuous, more clear to our understanding. With that clarity we can see which parts of winemaking are laborious, which chemicals lead to bad taste, and even how harmful byproducts might be introduced. This knowledge opens the door to a technological intervention\u0026mdash;we might, for example, choose to use tools which speed up the fermentation process or which reduce harmful byproducts. But where should we draw the line in modifying the traditional process? At what point does technologically optimized wine stop becoming wine?\nBorgmann says that the general public, though it has limited understanding of science and of the details of technological transformation, intuitively grasps at least what we have been saying so far: science illuminates possibilities of dealing with the world, and through technology we make them actual. But some people go further and argue that modern science in its explanatory slide has actually ushered in a new worldview. Those who agree with this claim differ in whether it\u0026rsquo;s a good or bad thing, but Borgmann wants to call the premise into question. There are three arguments he sees for this thesis that science itself has ushered in a new worldview:\nScience was in historical fact a liberating event (from superstition to true understanding, etc\u0026hellip;), therefore it has delivered a new and concrete way of engaging with the world. Scientists are held to unparalleled standards of correctness and achievement, therefore what is active is a new worldview. The chaos in our world comes from a failure to follow scientific ideals through completely, therefore science must embody a distinct worldview. Of the three arguments, he only considers the first (which he considers to be the strongest) in detail. It is true that as scientific theories advance, real and well-documented clashes occur. When these clashes are against the powers of the day, the clash is seen as a revolution and science is typically on the side of liberation. But, as Borgmann points out, science in this role is always a liberation from, not a liberation for. What he means is that by casting sufficient doubt on established ideas, science can provide incentive to revolt, but it can never produce a substantive framework of its own, out of its own resources.\nHere Borgmann draws upon the idea of deictic resources (world-articulation, rather than world-explanation): \u0026ldquo;Withdrawal of scientific endorsement forces a worldview back to its deictic resources\u0026rdquo; (29). If that worldview has no deictic resources, it may very well perish (as we have seen with alchemy). But strongly deictic disciplines such as poetry and art do not, predictably, disappear with the advance of science, since they are not in the business of world-explanation. For this reason Borgmann declares the scuffle between science and theology to be pointless\u0026mdash;science is not satisfyingly deictic enough to warrant the discarding of theology, which can provide concrete orientation for our lives.\nThe main point is that science as a sociological phenomenon cannot guide us from within its own center (i.e., its laws and theories), but must lean upon external resources for leadership. That doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean, however, that science cannot rise in power without those guiding resources. And this approach, like a car with the driver asleep at the wheel, can have disastrous consequences. We might engage technology as the inevitable outgrowth of a science that sees reality as an infinite manifold of pure, moldable substance, begging us to transform it. Borgmann is not quite so pessimistic, however, and reminds us that it is possible to distinguish the scientific method (i.e., the heart of science\u0026rsquo;s laws and theories) from the worldview just expressed. This enables us to separate science from technology and find a place for science without viewing technology as necessarily having the same privileged status (a status which flows from true explanation). Science is a necessary precursor to a technological age, but it is not a sufficient condition for it.\nHow then can we explicate technology if not as a necessary consequence of science? Borgmann believes we need to begin by looking at the fundamental pattern of technology. We will do that when we transition to Part 2, which begins with the next chapter, \u0026ldquo;The Promise of Technology\u0026rdquo;.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2012/01/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-7-the-scope-of-scientific-explanation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt this point in our exploration of the relationship between modern science and technology, what can we say with confidence? First, that modern science shows us that the world exists in a large matrix of possible states of affairs. The space of these possibilities is defined by the world\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003einitial conditions\u003c/em\u003e: given some physical state of affairs in the past, our world is one of its possible subsequent states. Technology can then be seen to \u0026ldquo;[reflect] a determination to act transformatively on these possibilities\u0026rdquo; (27). In other words, science tells us what\u0026rsquo;s physically possible and through technology we decide to act on them in order to change the world. In these roles, both science and technology share a problem: there is no principled way, using only their own resources, to decide \u003cem\u003ewhat\u003c/em\u003e to explain or \u003cem\u003ewhat\u003c/em\u003e to transform.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 7, \"Science and Technology\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nIn this chapter we examine how far the validity of scientific explanation (the style of explanation called deductive-nomological) extends. Can there be any objections to the claim that scientific explanation is the proper mode of explanation for every question? Borgmann discusses such objections to both the necessity and sufficiency of scientific explanation.\nBorgmann sees the objection to necessity (i.e., the objection which says scientific explanation is not necessary for true explanation) as relatively weak. The argument he offers for this view is that historians give valid explanations of unique events. They don\u0026rsquo;t try to reduce the cause of WWI to basic scientific principles, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean answers referring to the Ottoman Empire are somehow invalid. This is true, Borgmann says, but not a good argument, since the core of scientific explanation is subsumption under a lawful pattern. Presumably, if pushed, the historian would also explain the actions of states and individuals with reference to laws of human behavior or politics. Thus this objection is not in principle an objection to scientific explanation, only (at most) to the cogency of trying to reduce complex historical data to physics (a task I agree is fruitless).\nThree objections to sufficiency (i.e., objections which says scientific explanation is not, in every case, enough to provide true explanation on its own) are given more weight. First, it has already been noted by Carl Hempel (a philosopher of science) that scientific explanation gives an answer to a why-question, but not to a request to explain a concrete thing or event. \u0026ldquo;Explain the Northern Lights\u0026rdquo; is simply not a sensible thing to say in the deductive-nomological framework (it is questions like \u0026ldquo;Why are the northern lights such-and-such a color?\u0026rdquo; that are countenanced by the framework). So it seems we may have explanatory desires that outstrip the power of scientific explanation. Borgmann calls explanations of these questions deictic: they satisfy our desire to know things themselves in their cosmological/ontological setting, not just why things have certain features or behave in certain ways given their ontological settings (in Chapter 5, Borgmann introduced the term apodeictic to describe this latter kind of explanation).\nSecond, Borgmann points out that any explanandum (any thing to be explained) exists in a nexus of a complex causal network. So \u0026ldquo;it is clear that when an explanation disregards that aspect of the event that is of concern to me, it fails to satisfy my need to understand\u0026rdquo; (23). What he is pointing out is that a given event can be subsumed under a great many laws and generate a great many simultaneously-valid explanations. Borgmann gives the example of observing a hawk sitting on a post watching a squirrel. Soon, the hawk leaves. If we ask, \u0026ldquo;why was the hawk sitting 5 feet from the squirrel?\u0026rdquo; we can give an answer based on geometry (utilizing the Pythagorean theorem and the height of the post) or based on ecology and the laws of animal behavior (saying, for example, \u0026ldquo;perhaps the hawk wasn\u0026rsquo;t hungry\u0026rdquo;). Scientific explanation itself does not tell us which one of these explanations is useful, suitable, or desirable. Thus there is always a (non-scientific) element of selective judgment in choosing the appropriate kind of explanation.\nThird, Borgmann points out that science has not been able to successfully explain itself, on three levels. There is no scientific explanation of (a) how scientific laws are discovered, (b) how problems get stated clearly enough to be explained scientifically, and (c) how science makes actual progress in our understanding of the world. Clearly, each of these is a question eminently worthy of explanation, and explanations have been proposed, but none with a deductive-nomological character.\nBorgmann draws an interesting connection between \u0026ldquo;progress\u0026rdquo; in science and the concept of deictic explanation. Progress in modern science is marked by \u0026ldquo;improvements in the scope, precision, and consistency of [its] laws\u0026rdquo; (23). The dramatic increase in precision sets modern science apart from its ancient counterparts. Aristotle\u0026rsquo;s laws, for example, had deductive-nomological character, while at the same time articulating a single, comprehensive vision of the world, encompassing (even) ethics and metaphysics. Borgmann claims that the sharpening of scientific precision causes it to increasingly divest itself of deictic power, choosing \u0026ldquo;world-explanation\u0026rdquo; over \u0026ldquo;world-articulation\u0026rdquo;.\nThat the deictic power of the sciences has waned is not a failure in general. Deictic disciplines still exist: \u0026ldquo;Art has always been the supreme deictic discourse\u0026rdquo; (26), and at times philosophy, religion, or politics. But in our modern society, it is not artists or philosophers who are called on in a crisis. Thus if the character of modern scientific explanation fails to provide the \u0026ldquo;orientation\u0026rdquo; needed for real political action, a worrying gap can be seen between apodeictic science and our deictic heritage.\nBorgmann does not make explicit at this point where technology fits into this picture. I take it, however, that it is of paramount importance, since technology, viewed as the concrete outworking of a tacitly-assumed scientific worldview, is often heralded as a vehicle for human political/social progress. We therefore need an explanation of technology which sheds light on the \u0026ldquo;gap\u0026rdquo; mentioned above. In other words, we must not assume that a scientific explanation of technology will be satisfying or even forthcoming. Borgmann wants to propose instead what he calls a \u0026ldquo;paradigmatic\u0026rdquo; explanation of technology (wherein technology\u0026rsquo;s essence is explained by looking at the typical or paradigmatic pattern of technology). We\u0026rsquo;ll begin that discussion when we look at Chapter 7, \u0026ldquo;Science \u0026amp; Technology\u0026rdquo;.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/12/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-6-the-scope-of-scientific-explanation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this chapter we examine how far the validity of scientific explanation (the style of explanation called \u003cem\u003edeductive-nomological\u003c/em\u003e) extends. Can there be any objections to the claim that scientific explanation is the proper mode of explanation for every question? Borgmann discusses such objections to both the necessity and sufficiency of scientific explanation.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 6, \"The Scope of Scientific Explanation\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nChapter 5 of TCCL is concerned with the validity of scientific explanation. Borgmann contrasts this with the scope of scientific explanation, which will be discussed in the next chapter. The example which runs throughout the chapter is the process of grape juice turning into wine. It\u0026rsquo;s a great example for discussing scientific explanation since it exemplifies the power of it (how it unlocks an understanding of the chemical and microbiological processes underlying fermentation) in the context of something paradigmatically cultural or taste-oriented.\nHow does grape juice turn into wine? It has commonly been known for quite some time that the combination of yeast and a sugar solution results in alcohol, but fermentation as a chemical formula was first described in 1810 by Guy-Lussac: C6H12O6 = 2C2H5OH + 2CO2. These symbols exhibit one important aspect of the drive to scientific explanation: it begins by asking questions and naming the subdivisions of entities. Yeast isn\u0026rsquo;t just yeast\u0026mdash;there are many kinds. Likewise with alcohol. So the formula \u0026ldquo;yeast + sugar = alcohol\u0026rdquo; is too simple. The formula is also open to the obvious question of how the process takes place! Do yeasts turn sugar into alcohol by ingesting it or by some kind of mechanical manipulation? With the advent of the microscope, we cannot refuse scientific experimentation\u0026rsquo;s invitation to \u0026ldquo;look and see\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;and when we do, we find answers to our questions (along with new questions and puzzles). Proof of the power of asking questions lies in the fact that we do not typically refer to Dionysius or the principle of spontaneous change when asked about grape juice turning into wine, as the ancients did. We are familiar enough with scientific explanation to assume that there must be one for this process.\nThe big picture of scientific explanation is an inexorable slide from larger observations and laws to more fine-grained ones. Scientific explanation is essentially the systematization of the child\u0026rsquo;s endlessly asking \u0026ldquo;Why?\u0026rdquo; And unlike most adults, reality does not respond with \u0026ldquo;Just because! Now stop asking questions.\u0026rdquo; There is always, of course, a \u0026ldquo;floor\u0026rdquo; to the questions we can ask, a place where we must say \u0026ldquo;we don\u0026rsquo;t know\u0026rdquo; and live, at least for a time, with mystery. But importantly, there is no reason to assume that that floor is immovable, or not subject to further \u0026ldquo;whys\u0026rdquo;. This is essentially an argument for scientific realism, the position that the explanatory slide is taking us on a journey through levels of reality.\nScientific realism isn\u0026rsquo;t the only perspective one can take in the philosophy of science; scientific instrumentalists, for example, point out the striking differences in language and explanatory level between the experience of fermentation (seeing and smelling a frothy wine must) and the descriptions of nuclear physics (where the process we call \u0026ldquo;fermentation\u0026rdquo; is so far above the level of quarks and nuons as to disappear completely). Instrumentalists thus want to draw a line between the tangible world and reductionistic, \u0026ldquo;abstract\u0026rdquo; science. Borgmann comes down solidly on the side of scientific realism (albeit with strong criticism waiting in the wings). He doesn\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s possible for the instrumentalists to draw a principled line between \u0026ldquo;experiential reality\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;abstract science\u0026rdquo;. The language can certainly be strikingly different, and bodily experiencing fermentation is certainly nothing like reading up on nuclear physics, but this doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that there isn\u0026rsquo;t an underlying reality insightfully explored by the latter. Nor is it an argument against the validity of scientific explanation that there are some things it hasn\u0026rsquo;t explained. The undeniable trend is that explanatory challenges (when clearly defined) are progressively met within the scientific paradigm.\nIn practice, the modern world is not instrumentalist; it does see pretty much everything as existing within the purview of scientific explanation. But Borgmann wants to draw a sharp distinction between the validity of scientific explanation (whether and how we should accept scientific reasoning) and its scope (the questions with which we can be confident the validity holds). So far we\u0026rsquo;ve been setting the groundwork for an argument for the validity; scope will be discussed in Chapter 6.\nThe time has come to define our terms more precisely. What is scientific explanation in the first place? It begins with the observation that our world is lawfully ordered, and our reality intelligible. One such intelligible regularity is must (a yeast + grape juice solution) turning to wine. That the regularity holds is an observation; it is explained when we can see it as one instance of a general law. Thus a scientific explanation of phenomenon X consists in showing how X regularly occurs according to law Y in context Z. Then we can say that X is subsumed under Y. Intuitively, this gives insight about the particular instances of X we find in the world.\nThis kind of explanation is called deductive nomological explanation, where the explanation consists in a logical argument flowing from lawlike premises combined with the observation at hand, to produce a conclusion. The premises are called the explanans (the bits which do the explaining), and the conclusion is called the explanandum (the observation to be explained). Interestingly, on this view, when we want to explain phenomenon X, we treat X as the conclusion of an argument, and are committed to finding true premises which lead to X. Borgmann calls these kind of explanations apodeictic explanations, since they have the force of logic. If they are clearly stated, it is easy to assess their logical validity, and if valid, they stand as solid explanations of a given phenomenon.\nDeductive nomological explanation, formalized in this way, seems far removed from our normal sense of \u0026ldquo;explanation\u0026rdquo;, but Borgmann claims the opposite: \u0026ldquo;To understand a particular event in seeing it within the framework of regularities is the common and pervasive way in which humans orient themselves in their world\u0026rdquo; (22). Sowing seeds is an activity based on experiencing the regularity of plant growth, eating food relies on our belief in its regular restorative abilities, and so on. \u0026ldquo;Grape juice turns to wine in the presence of yeast and given other conditions\u0026rdquo; is precisely a deductive nomological explanation. Thus science is merely the (admittedly radical) sharpening of the kind of thinking which humans have used since the dawn of the species.\nAnalyzing reality with increasing precision is the particular hallmark of \u0026ldquo;modern\u0026rdquo; science, which, with the precision narrowing to the suboptical, grows increasingly removed from everyday experience. These differences can be put succinctly:\nThe Everyday WorldThe Matrix of Scientific KnowledgeOpacity\nWe see things in their externalities, not essences.vs.Perspicuity\nNature\u0026rsquo;s inner workings become clearMolar\nWe see things on a scale tuned to human perception.vs.Microscopic\nExplanations refer to entities below the level of human perception.Diversity\nThe world around us is rich in variety, no two things appear identical.vs.Sameness\nMillions of animal species, but only ~115 elements in the periodic table.\nDespite the tendency of science to reductionism, it should be made clear that what science discloses to us is a rich, highly connected network of systems that make up our world: geological, biological, and ecological systems all interact in a way that highlights the interconnectedness of reality. As Borgmann puts it, \u0026ldquo;This is the explanatory power of science: it explains everything more precisely and more generally than any prior mode of explanation\u0026rdquo; (22).\nIt should follow, then, that science can provide a precise explanation of technology. But this has not been done. Is such an explanation forthcoming? To answer that question, we must first decide whether such an explanation is in principle possible. We saw how with questions about the natural world there is every reason to think explanations are always possible in principle. But the question of technology may be fundamentally different, and we cannot assume that the scope of scientific explanation covers every conceivable question. The next chapter will deal with this issue, and spend time adding nuance to the view of science so far espoused.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/12/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-5-scientific-explanation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChapter 5 of \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e is concerned with the \u003cstrong\u003evalidity\u003c/strong\u003e of scientific explanation. Borgmann contrasts this with the \u003cstrong\u003escope\u003c/strong\u003e of scientific explanation, which will be discussed in the next chapter. The example which runs throughout the chapter is the process of grape juice turning into wine. It\u0026rsquo;s a great example for discussing scientific explanation since it exemplifies the power of it (how it unlocks an understanding of the chemical and microbiological processes underlying fermentation) in the context of something paradigmatically cultural or taste-oriented.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 5, \"Scientific Explanation\""},{"content":"From the \u0026ldquo;philosophy of technology not-so-deeply discussed\u0026rdquo; file comes this article from TechCrunch. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to see some of the ironic nature of technology considered:\nMany of us take for granted that technology is the brightest spot in the economy, where most of the innovation and job creation occurs. But if you look more broadly at the impact of technology across every industry, it doesn’t look so great. Technology makes businesses more efficient, often by eliminating the need for repetitive tasks and the workers who do them. We are not replacing those jobs with enough new, higher-skilled ones to make up for the loss.\nThis, of course, has been happening for a long time, though the author makes the analogy to the workhorse rather than the industrial-age citizen:\nIs the U.S. worker in the same position today as the workhorse was 100 years ago when it was replaced by another technology: the engine (first steam, and then internal combustion). Peak employment for horses was in 1901, there were 3.25 million working horses in the England. Those jobs went away with the introduction of machinery, tractors, cars, and trucks.\nAnother great quote, very relevant to the recent Borgmann blogs I have been writing:\nBut wait a second, says [Erik] Brynjollffson. His central argument, which he puts forth in Race Against the Machine, a book he co-authored with Andrew McAfee, is that it is not people versus machines. It is people with machines. Technology is just a tool that lets us be even more productive.\nThe problem is that not enough people know how to use the new tools of the Internet, mobile, and cloud computing. The workforce as a whole does not have the right mix of skills. Hence tech companies can’t hire enough engineers while the rest of the economy suffers from perpetual unemployment.\nWhat a brilliant example of the instrumentalist view of technology! The problem doesn\u0026rsquo;t have anything to do with technology per se, says Brynjollffson\u0026mdash;we simply haven\u0026rsquo;t adapted as a human race to the kinds of jobs and experiences that await in a thoroughly technological society. This is of course a valid point, but isn\u0026rsquo;t it more reasonable to ask what human flourishing consists in before capitulating to a technological paradigm? It seems to me we should be asking whether a technological society fulfills (as Borgmann put it in the last chapter I blogged about) our deepest aspirations, and only then decide how thoroughly technologized to become.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/11/relay-is-technology-destroying-jobs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the \u0026ldquo;philosophy of technology not-so-deeply discussed\u0026rdquo; file comes \u003ca href=\"http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/15/technology-destroying-jobs/\"\u003ethis article from TechCrunch\u003c/a\u003e. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to see some of the ironic nature of technology considered:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMany of us take for granted that technology is the brightest spot in the economy, where most of the innovation and job creation occurs. But if you look more broadly at the impact of technology across every industry, it doesn’t look so great. Technology makes businesses more efficient, often by eliminating the need for repetitive tasks and the workers who do them. We are not replacing those jobs with enough new, higher-skilled ones to make up for the loss.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Relay: Is Technology Destroying Jobs?"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nIn this chapter we begin to look at the relationship of science and technology, by initiating an inquiry into the nature of science. Borgmann spends much of this brief chapter painting a rough picture of what people say and think about science. This outline of popular sentiment is important since much of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s work is devoted to critically examining common worldviews: \u0026ldquo;The entire exercise will of course be pointless if no attempt is made to expose today\u0026rsquo;s normal world citizenship to criticism, to expose its inconsistencies and liabilities, and strengthen its proudest aspirations\u0026rdquo; (17).\nAny theory of technology must deal with science since it is crucially dependent on science; without that aspect of human history, the technological paradigm would not exist. Technology can also in some sense be thought of as being in competition with science: science sets the standard of explanation in our time, and Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s theory of technology may fall under a different standard. (As we will see in later chapters, what exactly a \u0026ldquo;scientific\u0026rdquo; explanation even consists of is a problematic question).\nFrom the perspective of some kind of sociological intuition, it can be presupposed that people today generally try to give what they consider scientific explanations rather than looking to the wrath of God or flying dragons to explain phenomena. Does this fit with empirical sociological data? Unfortunately, surveys which obtain this data accurately are hard to formulate and/or find. Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s view is that there is no \u0026ldquo;clear and common notion\u0026rdquo; of science, either in the public or in the scientific community. (Anecdotally, my experience is that the philosophy of science (the field which looks at the grounding claims of scientific reasoning and principles) is more or less unknown to scientists as well as non-scientists).\nEmpirically, we can say a few things:\nThe public\u0026rsquo;s command of scientific facts is extremely minimal (i.e., science is an external authority; the actual knowledge is not owned by people themselves). People generally think highly of science. People respect and trust science more the more they are acquainted with it. (Implying that it proves satisfying in some regard, in some context). One study suggests that people take a \u0026ldquo;scientific\u0026rdquo; view when they\u0026rsquo;re in command of their situation, and resort to religion for explanations when there are no available scientific ones. Facts like these help to address a question which is of primary importance: with what degree of insight does the average citizen of modern technological society apprehend their world? In other words, how deep, nuanced, and structured are people\u0026rsquo;s worldviews in general? If it turns out that most people have a thin and undifferentiated veneer of \u0026ldquo;science\u0026rdquo; slathered on top of not much else, then there is ample room for a critique of modern culture (and its uncritical appropriation of the device paradigm) on that basis.\nIn order to dive into the confusion Borgmann claims most people have about science, he wants to initially divide the term into three senses (which normally are not distinguished):\nScience as a human, social enterprise Science as a body of established laws and theories Science in its applied form These three sciences have vastly different features and descriptions. Science as a social enterprise is subject to all the vagaries of any such enterprise: ambition, heroism, treachery, jealousy, diligence, etc\u0026hellip; In other words, in this sense science is no more privileged than business or politics or religion, as their practitioners will all exhibit similar classes of moral behavior.\nScience as a body of established laws and theories, on the other hand, has a valid claim to objectivity. The content of a theory is independent of its human origin, and can be proved or disproved in the same way. How scientific laws are used doesn\u0026rsquo;t change their fundamental essence: they properly attempt only to describe nature. As Borgmann says, \u0026ldquo;It makes no difference to the validity of a scientific law whether it has been discovered by a Jesuit or a Communist and whether it is applied to kill or to cure\u0026rdquo; (17). (Of course, which theories gain funding and support is emphatically not an objective fact).\nIt\u0026rsquo;s this aspect of science that Borgmann wants to distinguish sharply from technology, and we\u0026rsquo;ll spend more time looking at it in future chapters. In particular, under the supposedly objective nature of scientific laws, there lurk deep philosophical problems not faced by the everyday proponent of a \u0026ldquo;scientific\u0026rdquo; worldview. Do all scientific theories have an equal claim to cogency and objectivity? What standard of explanation is relevant when comparing them?\nScience in its applied form is most akin to what we mean by technology. It arises as a possibility from scientific laws, and both draws energy from and feeds energy into science as a social project. Borgmann is not sure that technology is merely applied science, however, and this will become clear in future chapters.\nIn Chapter 5, we will look at the topic of scientific explanation: how a given theory can be said to be explanatory, and what principles are proposed for distinguishing competing theories which all seem to have some claim to validity.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/11/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-4-scientific-theory/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this chapter we begin to look at the relationship of science and technology, by initiating an inquiry into the nature of science. Borgmann spends much of this brief chapter painting a rough picture of what people say and think about science. This outline of popular sentiment is important since much of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s work is devoted to critically examining common worldviews: \u0026ldquo;The entire exercise will of course be pointless if no attempt is made to expose today\u0026rsquo;s normal world citizenship to criticism, to expose its inconsistencies and liabilities, and strengthen its proudest aspirations\u0026rdquo; (17).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 4, \"Scientific Theory\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nIn this chapter, Borgmann is concerned to shore up the validity of the distinction between the substantive, instrumental, and pluralist views of technology. These distinctions carve up the possible theoretical space in a certain way, and Borgmann concedes that any such classification is going to suppress some aspects of reality and highlight others. We therefore need to be mindful of this in selecting a space within which to develop a theory of technology, and it\u0026rsquo;s open to anyone to ask whether Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s categorization is the best, or even a good, one.\nWhat Borgmann gives us in Chapter 3 is essentially a case study: he examines a different classification of ideas about technology, namely that of Carl Mitcham. In comparing the features of Mitcham\u0026rsquo;s distinctions and their fruitfulness for providing an appropriate arena for asking and answering questions about technology, Borgmann is trying to convince us that we should stick with his picture. He does this with a measure of humility; he does not critique Mitcham\u0026rsquo;s classification (in fact much of the chapter praises it) so much as point out where it leaves residual areas of potential confusion.\nMitcham makes the same basic distinction Borgmann did, between the narrow sense of technology as engineering science and the broad sense of it in all its interfaces with society. The subsequent challenge Mitcham takes up is to address whether technology may be thought of as an \u0026ldquo;all-pervasive approach\u0026rdquo; to human affairs. (In other words, technology is one instance of a more inclusive phenomenon). He rejects this \u0026ldquo;radical\u0026rdquo; thesis, deciding that technology is rather \u0026ldquo;the human making and using of material artifacts in all forms and aspects\u0026rdquo; (13). (Here Borgmann says as an aside that the above challenge is the basis of his introduction of the distinction between the substantive and instrumental views). That technology is a \u0026ldquo;making\u0026rdquo; implies that it is not a \u0026ldquo;doing\u0026rdquo; in the Aristotelian sense (where human \u0026ldquo;doing\u0026rdquo; encompasses political, moral, and religious action), though Borgmann questions whether this distinction is even valid in modern society, given that \u0026ldquo;making\u0026rdquo; has so eclipsed \u0026ldquo;doing\u0026rdquo; in general.\nMitcham sees three major dimensions of technology: the subjective (or material, i.e., pertaining to the actual substances and methods of technology), the functional (or structural, i.e., the essential aspects of technology), and the social (or historical, i.e., technology as a social, historical enterprise). For Mitcham the functional dimension is the one we least understand, and he further subdivides it into technology-as-knowledge, technology-as-process, and technology-as-product. These correspond to three canonical philosophical entities: thoughts, activities, and objects, respectively. These distinctions in hand, Mitcham tries to address deeper questions of the essence of technology, and finds that he needs a fourth aspect (technology-as-volition, i.e., technology with respect to our will about ourselves and the world) in order to address the supreme question of whether technology fits our deepest aspirations or not. In Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s words, this question can be paraphrased by the possible answers to it: \u0026ldquo;Is technology a powerful instrument in the service of our values, a force in its own right that threatens our essential welfare, or is there perhaps no clear problem of technology at all, merely an interplay of numerous \u0026amp; variable tendencies?\u0026rdquo; (15)\nFor Borgmann, Mitcham\u0026rsquo;s multi-tiered classification of technology obscures as much as it illuminates, and he thinks the core questions are addressed better by the substantive/instrumental/pluralist distinctions. These distinctions form a set of competing tensions\u0026mdash;no one viewpoint can be correct, he says, because modern technology is too complex. Within their defining boundaries, then, what can we discern as the fundamental pattern of technology? That is the task at hand. One major obstacle in pursuing this task is the lack of a \u0026ldquo;principled understanding of science.\u0026rdquo; Science and technology are usually thought of in the same vein (or as essentially identical approaches to knowledge and action, respectively), but Borgmann claims this is a fatally misleading assumption, and will spend the next few chapters discussing the relationship between these two concepts.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/11/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-3-the-choice-of-a-theory/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this chapter, Borgmann is concerned to shore up the validity of the distinction between the substantive, instrumental, and pluralist views of technology. These distinctions carve up the possible theoretical space in a certain way, and Borgmann concedes that any such classification is going to suppress some aspects of reality and highlight others. We therefore need to be mindful of this in selecting a space within which to develop a theory of technology, and it\u0026rsquo;s open to anyone to ask whether Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s categorization is the best, or even a good, one.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 3, \"The Choice of a Theory\""},{"content":"I felt compelled to break into the normal Blogging Borgmann schedule to share this wonderful video from the RSA (who puts on some amazing talks and sometimes has them animated in creative ways). It communicates a new perspective (from psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist) on the meaning of the left/right hemisphere division in the brain. As someone who is slowly recovering in life from the left-brain myopia McGilchrist describes, while trying to retain a (more integrated) view of what my intense focus and categorization of reality have to offer, I found this video very resonant.\nIn particular, I hope ideas like this allow for greater freedom for the right-brained people who tend to get lost or squashed in the system as it has historically evolved. And I hope that recovering left-brain myopians like myself can recognize the beauty and life available outside of our frameworks, especially when it comes to the people who just don\u0026rsquo;t make sense to us. But enough of me; watch the video, and let me know your reactions!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/10/relay-the-divided-brain/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI felt compelled to break into the normal Blogging Borgmann schedule to share this wonderful video from the RSA (who puts on some amazing talks and sometimes has them \u003ca href=\"http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/\"\u003eanimated in creative ways\u003c/a\u003e). It communicates a new perspective (from psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist) on the meaning of the left/right hemisphere division in the brain. As someone who is slowly recovering in life from the left-brain myopia McGilchrist describes, while trying to retain a (more integrated) view of what my intense focus and categorization of reality have to offer, I found this video very resonant.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Relay: The Divided Brain"},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nChapter 2 of TCCL consists of an overview of several existing theories of technology that Borgmann wants to use as partners in dialogue, in the process of constructing his own theory. The pre-theoretic, simplistic view of technology is pragmatic: science and technology have proven their validity and usefulness through the effective solutions they boast to real problems. Since it is obvious that technology has indeed solved such problems, any more nuanced theory will have to be presented with the utmost precision and care. (Here I think Borgmann is justifying the level of detail he will be going into in this section of the book).\nIn the simplistic \u0026ldquo;default\u0026rdquo; view, technology is basically \u0026ldquo;applied science and engineering\u0026rdquo; (8). By this Borgmann is saying people generally think of technology merely as what happens when scientists and engineers do work in the world. He claims this leaves technology too narrowly defined: there is no room for fruitful inquiry into technology\u0026rsquo;s deeper essence if it is defined purely functionally. So a real theory of technology would offer a more engaging perspective.\nBorgmann sees three broad approaches to developing a theory of technology:\nThe substantive approach. On this view, technology is a force in its own right. It isn\u0026rsquo;t understood as a personal force, but just something which is not reducible to other principles. In other words, it\u0026rsquo;s a basic element of modern existence, rather than something which is explained by reference to other elements. As a matter of practice, most substantivists tend to portray this force as negative (and so are called anti-technologist or Luddite).\nWhile Borgmann lauds the simplicity of this view (technology simply is) and the fact that technology as a basic force is seen to have its own characteristic essence, he thinks substantivists do not adequately meet the challenges posed by the apparent success of technology in meeting the world\u0026rsquo;s problems. Stridently declaring technology evil does not deliver the requisite insight!\nThe instrumentalist approach. This is perhaps the most common theoretical position; it sees technological devices as the evolution of the simple tools humans have been using since the dawn of our species\u0026mdash;there is fundamentally no difference between a hammer and a computer. On this approach, Borgmann notes that the primary question concerning technology becomes: what ends are these tools used for?\nThis division between ends and means finds a congenial home in our liberal democracy (by which Borgmann means this kind of democracy), wherein \u0026ldquo;it is the task of the state to provide means for the good life but \u0026hellip; to leave to private efforts the establishment and pursuit of ultimate values\u0026rdquo; (10). In other words, the state is free to make available any kind of technological development, but not to say what kinds of ends are appropriate for their use.\nBorgmann admits that instrumentalism is on one hand true (technological devices and tools are indeed analogically related, and the distinction between ends and means is indeed a real part of our current experience), but claims it misses several important points. The first is that the distinction between ends and means itself is a novel thing which did not exist in pre-technological society. Secondly, technological \u0026ldquo;ends\u0026rdquo; consistently find their realization in supporting a ruling elite and exploiting the poor, which suggests there is something more complicated going on than the use of tools.\nThe pluralist approach. Borgmann defines this perspective rather vaguely (in my opinion), describing it basically as the position that there can be no comprehensive approach to technology; at the end of the day, all we have are anecdotes about society\u0026rsquo;s engagement with machines, and there is no discernible underlying pattern. While this approach can (technically speaking) handle every observed fact or situation, Borgmann claims it does so at the cost of failing the test of reality: technology does have a character which runs through all the instances of its use, and it moreover has a real effect on the world. As he says, \u0026ldquo;in modern technology the face of the earth is transformed in a radically novel way\u0026rdquo; (11)\u0026mdash;I leave it to the reader to imagine all the ways the earth has been literally transformed by machines.\nAfter this brief review, Borgmann describes the kind of theory of technology he wants to build in TCCL. It should make bold and radical claims, it should explicate the character of technology (i.e., make it easier to observe and understand), it should on one hand reflect common-sense intuitions while on the other hand avoid superficiality, and finally it should emerge from an observation of actual events and situations (i.e., it should have empirical grounding).\nAs we move into the next chapters, Borgmann will lay out the ground rules for developing and substantiating such a theory. For example, we\u0026rsquo;ll engage in some philosophy of science (\u0026ldquo;What is a theory, and what makes a theory good?\u0026rdquo;). We\u0026rsquo;ll also look at the relationship between technology and science\u0026mdash;is it as close as we normally assume? We\u0026rsquo;ll begin to explore that question in Chapter 3.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/10/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-2-theories-of-technology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChapter 2 of \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e consists of an overview of several existing theories of technology that Borgmann wants to use as partners in dialogue, in the process of constructing his own theory. The pre-theoretic, simplistic view of technology is pragmatic: science and technology have proven their validity and usefulness through the effective solutions they boast to real problems. Since it is obvious that technology has indeed solved such problems, any more nuanced theory will have to be presented with the utmost precision and care. (Here I think Borgmann is justifying the level of detail he will be going into in this section of the book).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 2, \"Theories of Technology\""},{"content":"Note: This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the Overview.\nIn the first chapter of TCCL, Borgmann makes it clear that we need a theory of technology, not just an understanding of the practices involved in it. He says moreover that this study is going to be \u0026ldquo;philosophical\u0026rdquo;, especially in the sense of prompting \u0026ldquo;considerations of a radical and reflective sort\u0026rdquo; (7). (This was certainly my experience in reading the book). The reason we need a theory is that problems in technological societies such as ours are often seen to be extrinsic to technology. People claim that \u0026ldquo;they stem \u0026hellip; from political indecision, social injustice, or environmental constraints\u0026rdquo; (3). According to Borgmann, this is a mistaken view. There is in fact a definite pattern to the fabric of our technologically-driven lives which elucidates the \u0026ldquo;hopes, confusions, and frustrations of the modern period\u0026rdquo; (3)\u0026mdash;and it is intrinsically tied up with technology.\n(Philosophers have historically fared no better than others in discerning this pattern because, Borgmann suggests, they often overlook the everyday foreground of our lives; and it is precisely here where the paradigmatic pattern of technology dominates.)\nWe need a theory of technology, and much of the book will be devoted to delivering one. So let\u0026rsquo;s begin. What is technology? It is, in sum, the dominant characteristic approach to reality in the modern world. It is seen most concretely in \u0026ldquo;devices\u0026rdquo; (TVs, cars, etc\u0026hellip;), and showing how such devices are paradigmatic of technology is a major aim of the book.\nWe can give one initial example of a device: a stereo set. The reason a stereo set exists is obvious: its goal is to provide music. Of course, people who gather with instruments and play bluegrass also provide music, but a stereo set provides music (a) at any time, and (b) of any kind. A stereo set, within the boundaries of its technology, is infinitely more versatile than a group of humans with instruments, but this comes at the cost of extreme abstractness (the form of the stereo set has nothing to do with the kind of music it provides, whereas the shape and material of a fiddle has everything to do with it) and concealment (the inner workings of a stereo set are an inscrutable collection of microchips and small electronics hidden behind a plastic veil). These two features, abstractness and concealment, will be major themes in elucidating the device paradigm.\nDifferences like these between live musicians (pre-technologically the only way to procure music) and a stereo set flag important questions of the gains and losses of the technological approach, which will continue to provide an interesting arena for discussion.\nApart from establishing the device paradigm as a good theory of technology, the other main aim of TCCL is to discuss \u0026ldquo;focal things and practices\u0026rdquo;, in order to understand the fatal flaw in present technological rule (this is where we can see the philosophy becoming truly radical, in the sense of calling accepted sensibilities into question). What are focal things and practices? In short, they are things/practices that \u0026ldquo;center and illuminate our lives\u0026rdquo; (4). As Borgmann says, \u0026ldquo;Music certainly has that power if it is alive as a regular and skillful engagement of body and mind and if it graces us in a full and final way\u0026rdquo; (4).\nA core critique of modern society, for Borgmann, is that it fundamentally lacks appreciation for the centrality of focal concerns, not to mention the tendency for technology to diminish them. (This is true even among philosophers and sociologists who study the modern era). It\u0026rsquo;s a testament to the cogency of the book, then, that this techno-junkie found deep insight in Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s claims that the device paradigm is inherently arrayed against focal concerns. But we\u0026rsquo;ve finished with chapter 1. See you next time for chapter 2, \u0026ldquo;Theories of Technology\u0026rdquo;!\nPS: Some evidence that some part of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s theory of technology resonates with technologists\u0026rsquo; understanding of it can be found in this interesting post by Jean-Baptiste Queru on the complexity of a simple task like visiting a web page. A relevant quote which emphasizes the \u0026lsquo;concealment\u0026rsquo; aspect (and the corresponding inability for most of us to diagnose and fix technological problems):\nOnce you start to understand how [our] modern devices work and how they\u0026rsquo;re created, it\u0026rsquo;s impossible to not be dizzy about the depth of everything that\u0026rsquo;s involved, and to not be in awe about the fact that they work at all, when Murphy\u0026rsquo;s law says that they simply shouldn\u0026rsquo;t possibly work.\nFor non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all. That is the reason why many people can find computers so frustrating to use: there are so many things that can possibly go wrong that some of them inevitably will, but the complexity goes so deep that it\u0026rsquo;s impossible for most users to be able to do anything about any error.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/10/blogging-borgmann-tccl-chapter-1-technology-and-theory/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote:\u003c/em\u003e This entry is part of a series where I am blogging chapter-by-chapter through the book \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003eTechnology and the Character of Contemporary Life\u003c/a\u003e ( \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e) by Albert Borgmann. If you\u0026rsquo;re new, you may want to start at the \u003ca href=\"/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/\"\u003eOverview\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the first chapter of \u003cem\u003eTCCL\u003c/em\u003e, Borgmann makes it clear that we need a theory of technology, not just an understanding of the practices involved in it. He says moreover that this study is going to be \u0026ldquo;philosophical\u0026rdquo;, especially in the sense of prompting \u0026ldquo;considerations of a radical and reflective sort\u0026rdquo; (7). (This was certainly my experience in reading the book). The reason we need a theory is that problems in technological societies such as ours are often seen to be extrinsic to technology. People claim that \u0026ldquo;they stem \u0026hellip; from political indecision, social injustice, or environmental constraints\u0026rdquo; (3). According to Borgmann, this is a mistaken view. There is in fact a definite pattern to the fabric of our technologically-driven lives which elucidates the \u0026ldquo;hopes, confusions, and frustrations of the modern period\u0026rdquo; (3)\u0026mdash;and it is intrinsically tied up with technology.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: TCCL Chapter 1, \"Technology and Theory\""},{"content":" After nearly two years of lectures, seminars, tutorials, assignments, papers, exams, and a thesis, I\u0026rsquo;m done with my MPhil in Linguistics at Oxford! (I technically won\u0026rsquo;t know whether I passed for another week or so, but since I\u0026rsquo;m confident I did my best on everything, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter to me much what happens at this point\u0026mdash;let\u0026rsquo;s stick a fork in it and call it done.)\nIt\u0026rsquo;s been a long and oftentimes hard journey, but full of reward. After leaving my last exam today (it felt somehow appropriate that it was on the history of the Greek language), it was sweet indeed to meet my wife and stroll through the old streets of Oxford\u0026mdash;streets which in many ways feel like old friends, especially now that the ominousness of final exams has been banished from every shadow. I will be sad to say goodbye to them and to all the other special bits of this wonderful town, a town which has meant something to me in various ways since I was a small boy. So here\u0026rsquo;s to following a dream, to finishing strong, and to letting go when the time comes to move on! (And to a great rest of the Summer in Oxford\u0026hellip;)\nCheers!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/06/m-phil/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e After nearly two years of lectures, seminars, tutorials, assignments, papers, exams, and a thesis, I\u0026rsquo;m done with my MPhil in Linguistics at Oxford! (I technically won\u0026rsquo;t know whether I passed for another week or so, but since I\u0026rsquo;m confident I did my best on everything, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter to me much what happens at this point\u0026mdash;let\u0026rsquo;s stick a fork in it and call it done.)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been a long and oftentimes hard journey, but full of reward. After leaving my last exam today (it felt somehow appropriate that it was on the history of the Greek language), it was sweet indeed to meet my wife and stroll through the old streets of Oxford\u0026mdash;streets which in many ways feel like old friends, especially now that the ominousness of final exams has been banished from every shadow. I will be sad to say goodbye to them and to all the other special bits of this wonderful town, a town which has meant something to me in various ways since I was a small boy. So here\u0026rsquo;s to following a dream, to finishing strong, and to letting go when the time comes to move on! (And to a great rest of the Summer in Oxford\u0026hellip;)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"M.Phil."},{"content":"The other day, Jess told me about a photography contest she found out about, and we decided to submit three photos each. It was surprisingly difficult to go through my photo library and pick three that I thought had something really special. A lot of my photos were almost automatically ruled out because I felt the subjects were too \u0026ldquo;obvious\u0026rdquo;: a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, for example. Anyway, I thought I\u0026rsquo;d post the three I decided to submit:\nLooking Through the Window at History\nRadcliffe Camera at Dusk\nTurning Around Before Dark in Joshua Tree\nIf you want to vote for my portfolio, you can check it out here! (Also, be sure to check out Jessica\u0026rsquo;s portfolio as well). It was really fun to pick a few photos I thought had a chance, and it inspires me to keep snapping pictures. It was also interesting to sink for a moment back into the stories these photos captured, and I hope they can transport you somewhere else for a brief second.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/06/recreate-3-photos/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe other day, Jess told me about a photography contest she found out about, and we decided to submit three photos each. It was surprisingly difficult to go through my photo library and pick three that I thought had something really special. A lot of my photos were almost automatically ruled out because I felt the subjects were too \u0026ldquo;obvious\u0026rdquo;: a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, for example. Anyway, I thought I\u0026rsquo;d post the three I decided to submit:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"ReCreate: 3 Photos"},{"content":"Since my last post on the philosophy of technology was admittedly a bit heady, here is something from the lighter, more curmudgeonly cynical side. Occasionally something comes across FailBlog which is just too good not to share. I present, without further ado, Deer Crossing Understanding FAIL!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/06/relay-deer-crossing-fail/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSince my last post on the philosophy of technology was admittedly a bit heady, here is something from the lighter, more curmudgeonly cynical side. Occasionally something comes across \u003ca href=\"http://www.failblog.org\"\u003eFailBlog\u003c/a\u003e which is just too good not to share. I present, without further ado, Deer Crossing Understanding FAIL!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://failblog.org/2011/06/01/epic-fail-photos-understanding-simple-concepts-fail/?utm_source=embed\u0026amp;utm_medium=web\u0026amp;utm_campaign=sharewidget\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"epic fail photos - Understanding Simple Concepts FAIL\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/epic-fail-photos-understanding-simple-concepts-fail.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Relay: Deer Crossing Fail"},{"content":" As any long-time reader of this blog knows, I am an avid technologist. From an early age, I was coding, gaming (see this post for my personal gaming history), building computers, hacking electronic devices, etc\u0026hellip; I\u0026rsquo;ve never been without a self-designed Internet homepage since 1997, and this blog has existed sporadically since 2002. After college I worked full-time as a web developer building applications, starting up startups, and generally being immersed in the geekiest of Internet culture (you may not know this, but according to YouTube I am a minor celebrity, because of a random video of an origami castle I posted once). I\u0026rsquo;ve salivated after iPods, stood in line for iPhones, built applications for Facebook, and co-founded two tech startups. How much more techno-centric could my life get?\nIn recent years, despite my love of all shiny code-filled things, I\u0026rsquo;ve had a nagging worry about the largely uncritical process by which society adopts new technologies, and this has surfaced on the blog occasionally: I\u0026rsquo;ve wondered about media consumption, questioned smartphones\u0026rsquo; effects on our mental faculties, and even stopped checking Facebook. A few years ago, a friend told me about a book by Albert Borgmann which apparently called into question the fundamental operating pattern of technology. I was intrigued, and not a bit offended by the very idea of this, so I ordered Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life ( TCCL). It was my first foray into the philosophy of technology, and it profoundly changed the way I think about technology and technological devices.\nThis change didn\u0026rsquo;t come easy; in fact, Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s rather short book took me over a year to read. Partly this is because Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s writing is dense (full of rich meaning, but hard to digest), and partly it\u0026rsquo;s because I subconsciously knew my position on technology and thereby my habitual actions were in danger of being threatened by a sea change. After finishing the book last Fall and wrestling with / processing Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s ideas, I resolved to read the book again, blogging each chapter as I go (both to clarify my own understanding and to help his ideas reach a wider audience). My goal will be to summarize Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s ideas and engage with them briefly (though this will look primarily like explicating them and defending them against putative objections, since I have been so swayed by his perspective). There are, I think, accessible popularizations of Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s ideas already available (of which I believe Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford to be one), but I hope my bringing attention to this relatively new field will be helpful nonetheless. For now, I will give a brief overview of the book, and hopefully tackle Chapter 1 sometime soon.\nBook Overview Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s book attempts to answer the basic question \u0026ldquo;What is technology?\u0026rdquo; by elucidating the basic character or pattern of technology (and indeed arguing that there is such a discernible pattern), and using that understanding to suggest a direction for the reform of technology (that such a reform is necessary is motivated by the nature of the basic pattern Borgmann argues has emerged).\nThere are, he claims, essentially three views on the essence of technology: the substantive, the instrumentalist, and the pluralist. On the substantive view, technology is a force in its own right, with its own character, and can thereby explain other phenomena in a properly basic way. For people who hold this view, technology is often pernicious, i.e., something to be avoided or minimized (cf. the anti-technology \u0026ldquo;Luddites\u0026rdquo;). On the instrumentalist view, technology is not a thing in and of itself, beyond the facts of machines and the purposes to which humans set them. Morality vis a vis technology is therefore the same as morality vis a vis anything else\u0026mdash;technology has no distinctive character which warrants a different analysis. Technology is essentially composed of more and better tools: there is no qualitative difference on the philosophical level between an iPhone and a hammer and chisel. Finally, the pluralist view brings to the fore the complexity of the task of describing technology, and makes no statements about its essence: it recognizes the validity in both the substantive and instrumentalist perspectives and attempts no adjudication.\nBorgmann is concerned in TCCL to argue for the substantive view, though in a patently non-Luddite tone. He rejects the pluralist view outright as a failure to recognize the reality that technology is something: pluralism is an unhelpful recapitulation of the problem of defining technology. The instrumentalist view is, according to Borgmann, the dominant and subconscious view, held by philosophers as well as popular culture (indeed, it was my view before reading his book), and much of the book is therefore spent explaining some of its inadequacies. His main critique is that the instrumentalist view fails to recognize the overarching paradigm which characterizes technology, and whose challenge cannot be met without engaging in so-called \u0026ldquo;deictic discourse\u0026rdquo; (essentially, discourse containing reference to ultimate goods). The whole point of instrumentalism is to avoid deictic discourse, and to assert that technology is a value-neutral enterprise, ready to be aimed towards the definition of good of whoever holds the trigger. Borgmann\u0026rsquo;s claim that in fact technology has its own \u0026ldquo;bent\u0026rdquo; brings up questions of social justice and social responsibility which end up being difficult to discuss profitably in the marketplace, especially when instrumentalism is assumed all around.\nThe pattern Borgmann sees underlying technology as a whole is called the \u0026ldquo;device paradigm\u0026rdquo;, defined as the making of goods available in a non-burdensome way, increasingly through the removal of the inner workings of the good-producing machine from human view and from human understanding. There is therefore a distinction between a thing and a device. Wood, for example, is a thing: it is felled, chopped, stacked, and put into a fire in order to burn and produce heat for a family. While fire itself is a scientific phenomenon difficult to explain, at no point is the production of heat (for the purpose of warmth) opaque to human participants. The wood also confronts us with its thingness: it is rough, heavy, requires work to chop, turns into annoying ash, has a distinct smell, produces smoke, etc\u0026hellip; All of these things are intrinsic and cannot be separated from the heat produced.\nA central heating system, on the other hand, produces warmth without any of these effects. The system itself is hidden from view (obviating the need for a hearth around which families gathered), and its workings are opaque to observers who are not specially trained in the technology. Warmth is commoditized and separated from its previously-physical concomitants. This is precisely what a device is: something that provides a commodity in a non-burdensome way, via the inner workings of black box of the machine.\nAccording to Borgmann, the commoditization of certain goods which used to be obtainable only in conjunction with certain \u0026ldquo;focal practices\u0026rdquo; (practices central to the humanity of humans, or related to \u0026ldquo;ultimate\u0026rdquo; concerns) is dangerous on a number of levels, and becomes an issue of social responsibility and justice, precisely when the instrumental view of technology illegitimates talk of ultimate concerns in the first place. What Borgmann sees happening is the increasing procurement of goods without the contexts which originally gave those goods meaning. Microwave dinners, treadmills, and the assembly line all come into view as clear examples of devices which subtly undermine the value in (respectively) the process of preparing food, the engagement of the physical world via running through it, and the satisfaction of creative, skilled labor.\nIt should be clear at this point that Borgmann believes technology needs reform, and the last third of the book is devoted to this issue. I will stop the overview here, however, and wait to discuss his recommendations until more of the scene is set. Suffice it to say that reform for Borgmann involves a recognition of the importance of focal things and practices, an awareness of nature, and deeper reflection on excellence, happiness, work, and political involvement.\nBook Outline Part One: The Problem of Technology\n1 Technology and Theory 2 Theories of Technology 3 The Choice of a Theory 4 Scientific Theory 5 Scientific Explanation 6 The Scope of Scientific Explanation 7 Science and Technology Part Two: The Character of Technology\n8 The Promise of Technology 9 The Device Paradigm 10 The Foreground of Technology 11 Devices, Means, and Machines 12 Paradigmatic Explanation 13 Technology and the Social Order 14 Technology and Democracy 15 The Rule of Technology 16 Political Engagement and Social Justice 17 Work and Labor 18 Leisure, Excellence, and Happiness 19 The Stability of Technology Part Three: The Reform of Technology\n20 The Possibilities of Reform 21 Deictic Discourse 22 The Challenge of Nature 23 Focal Things and Practices 24 Wealth and the Good Life 25 Political Affirmation 26 The Recovery of the Promise of Technology Interviewing Borgmann After completing this series, I had the opportunity to interview Albert at his home in Montana. Our very enlightening conversation has been transcribed and written up here as 4 separate posts:\nInterviewing Borgmann, Part 1 Interviewing Borgmann, Part 2 Interviewing Borgmann, Part 3 Interviewing Borgmann, Part 4 ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/05/blogging-borgmann-overview-technology-and-the-character-of-contemporary-life/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Technology-Character-Contemporary-Life-Philosophical/dp/0226066290%3FSubscriptionId%3D0MNMC603FA906P2NSD82%26tag%3Dbooktrac-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0226066290%22\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/2012/08/0226066290.jpeg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e As any long-time reader of this blog knows, I am an avid technologist. From an early age, I was coding, gaming (see \u003ca href=\"/2006/03/inspiration-from-game-design/\"\u003ethis post\u003c/a\u003e for my personal gaming history), building computers, hacking electronic devices, etc\u0026hellip; I\u0026rsquo;ve never been without a self-designed Internet homepage since 1997, and this blog has existed sporadically \u003ca href=\"/about/\"\u003esince 2002\u003c/a\u003e. After college I worked full-time as a web developer building applications, starting up startups, and generally being immersed in the geekiest of Internet culture (you may not know this, but according to YouTube I am a minor celebrity, because of a random \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pfmZtGBijc\"\u003evideo of an origami castle\u003c/a\u003e I posted once). I\u0026rsquo;ve salivated after iPods, stood in line for iPhones, built \u003ca href=\"http://apps.facebook.com/booktracker/\"\u003eapplications for Facebook\u003c/a\u003e, and co-founded two \u003ca href=\"http://backlight.org\"\u003etech\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"http://comendi.com\"\u003estartups\u003c/a\u003e. How much more techno-centric could my life get?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Blogging Borgmann: Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (Overview)"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a few months since I\u0026rsquo;ve written, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been storing up many wonderful things to share at some less busy time. Now is not that less busy time, unfortunately; it\u0026rsquo;s thesis week and I\u0026rsquo;ve pulled too many almost-all-nighters recently to spend time composing blogs.\nHowever, I just saw something that I have to denounce. I don\u0026rsquo;t like denouncing in general, but some things need it:\nIf I have the facts right, this is a video of Americans celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden. He was, for all I could tell, an evil person, misguided and ruled by violence. I can\u0026rsquo;t even say that the world was not right to hunt down and destroy him, if the motivations were those of grim necessity. But to see such unbridled joy in vengeance, such narrow-minded nationalism that equates the death of our enemies with the furthering of our own greatness, such confusion about justice\u0026hellip; It gives me a feeling of nausea.\nI am an American. I grew up there, and my wife and I will be moving back there in a few short months, and what I have seen of my fellow citizens has deeply shamed me. \u0026ldquo;God bless America\u0026rdquo; on the lips of those drunk with revenge is the worst kind of blasphemy, and the most pitiable kind of foolishness (for which civilization has God favored so much that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t eventually razed to the ground?). It is obvious these people don\u0026rsquo;t understand what they sing, because \u0026ldquo;God blessing America\u0026rdquo; doesn\u0026rsquo;t have anything to do with the death of America\u0026rsquo;s enemies (however much they deserve death), but rather the painful widening of the apparently tiny hearts and minds of America\u0026rsquo;s own citizens.\nGod bless America, indeed.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/05/reaction-bin-laden/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been a few months since I\u0026rsquo;ve written, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been storing up many wonderful things to share at some less busy time. Now is not that less busy time, unfortunately; it\u0026rsquo;s thesis week and I\u0026rsquo;ve pulled too many almost-all-nighters recently to spend time composing blogs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, I just saw something that I have to denounce. I don\u0026rsquo;t like denouncing in general, but some things need it:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf I have the facts right, this is a video of Americans celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden. He was, for all I could tell, an evil person, misguided and ruled by violence. I can\u0026rsquo;t even say that the world was not right to hunt down and destroy him, if the motivations were those of grim necessity. But to see such unbridled joy in \u003cem\u003evengeance\u003c/em\u003e, such narrow-minded nationalism that equates the death of our enemies with the furthering of our own greatness, such confusion about justice\u0026hellip; It gives me a feeling of nausea.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reaction: Bin Laden"},{"content":"When my wife and I got married at the beginning of last August, we decided not to use Facebook or do (practically) any e-mail during our month-long honeymoon, since we wanted our vacation to be free from social distraction. Afterwards, once we got set up in our apartment in Oxford, I gave myself a little challenge, on a whim: not to open up Facebook until I had a need or strong desire to. While the need was realized once or twice (I maintain a Facebook application called BookTracker, and had to update and test some code, which required going to the canvas page for the application), the strong desire wasn\u0026rsquo;t. Thus it happens that, 5 months after my Facebook hiatus officially ended, I still haven\u0026rsquo;t updated my status (although updates are made automatically when I publish a blog) or seen anything in my news feed. Somewhat humorously, Jessica and I haven\u0026rsquo;t even bothered to update our relationship status from \u0026lsquo;Engaged\u0026rsquo; to \u0026lsquo;Married\u0026rsquo;! What follows are a few reflections I now feel prepared to make about Facebook (and a fortiori much of social media in general), given that I\u0026rsquo;ve had a decent amount of time to differentiate from it:\nFacebook is distracting. Even though I had heavily curated my news feed, ruthlessly eliminating \u0026lsquo;friends\u0026rsquo; to keep them from crufting it up with FarmVille updates, I now recognize that Facebook was a habitual distraction. Whenever I paused in work or lost a train of thought, I\u0026rsquo;d mindlessly navigate to Facebook and get even further away from what I really needed to spend time doing. I still have other such distractions, e-mail being the most major. But in resisting the urge to click my Facebook bookmark, I really do save time and brain cycles. I think the mode of distraction goes deeper than individual distraction experiences, however; more on this in further reflections!\nFacebook discourages extended or systematic discourse. I\u0026rsquo;m the kind of person who likes to share thoughts and ideas, and sometimes I even think others appreciate them. What Facebook (and moreso Twitter) encouraged me to do was to compress these thoughts into something that could fit into a status update. I realized that this bite-size style of communication had two effects:\nMy desires to share thoughts/ideas were satisfied by publishing these snippets, and I therefore had less inclination to try and say something that took time to post on my blog. Why would I try to make a complex and nuanced contribution to a conversation when I would get \u0026rsquo;liked\u0026rsquo; just as much for saying something short and snarky, or simply passing on a link? The things I said were less useful or interesting to others. While there is indeed value in saying something concisely, there are a lot of valuable things that can\u0026rsquo;t be so stated (hopefully this post is among them, for example). Some arguments that merit attention are extended! A systemic corollary of this, I think, is the general reduction of people\u0026rsquo;s willingness to engage with complicated ideas that take time to explicate and understand. I think it\u0026rsquo;s obvious why this is a problem\u0026mdash;one has only to look at any hot political issue to see what happens when debate devolves into slogan-shouting (i.e., status-update-slinging)!\nFacebook is shallow. I mean this in a number of ways. The previous point elaborated on the shallowness inherent in the sharing mechanism, but I believe it extends to the quality of relationships maintained on Facebook, and in general the content which is produced (\u0026lsquo;social\u0026rsquo; apps tend to exacerbate this problem, as they try to spam the news feed with meaningless achievements or updates). I think this point is a strict consequence of other things I\u0026rsquo;ve been saying, but I wanted to sum it up under one adjective.\nFacebook technologizes relationships. I hope that this entry will be the first of many to come relating to the philosophy of technology, and so I don\u0026rsquo;t want to go into a lot of detail here. Basically, Facebook is an instance of the technological paradigm in that it commoditizes the goods it claims to procure for us. Ostensibly, Facebook\u0026rsquo;s goal is merely to provide something like \u0026lsquo;frictionless online connection\u0026rsquo; for pre-existing friendships. However, let\u0026rsquo;s face it, what people use Facebook for is \u0026lsquo;connection\u0026rsquo; simpliciter, and often not even in the context of a pre-existing relationship. The \u0026lsquo;connection\u0026rsquo; that Facebook procures for us in this regard is the mere composite of the sharing and consuming of personal information, rather than the appropriate synchronization of sharing/consuming which engenders true connection. These two behaviors (sharing and consuming) are disconnected in such a way that everyone is talking, and everyone is listening, but nobody is having a conversation. And yet, in the way that high-fructose corn syrup fools our bodies into thinking they have ingested something natural (sugar), I notice that, for the most part, Facebook users believe this flood of voices projected into the void constitutes legitimate connection.\nFacebook facilitates strange interpersonal behavior. Has anyone ever had a Facebook friend post something to their wall which should have more appropriately been sent as a private message? I have, and much more often than experiencing the equivalent real-life behavior (i.e., communicating personal information within earshot of others) or even the equivalent e-mail behavior (i.e., cc\u0026rsquo;ing people who really don\u0026rsquo;t have anything to do with the private contents of the message). Has anyone else noticed a growing tendency in users to share fairly personal and/or awkward updates to their entire friend list? Facebook provides tools to moderate who sees what, but few if any people make use of these tools, with the result that most users\u0026rsquo; friend lists are undifferentiated masses of relationships, probably not all of whom should be informed at the same time about, say, a miscarriage! Are these things Facebook\u0026rsquo;s fault? Not directly, perhaps, but the ecosystem has somehow bred this kind of culture, perhaps because the disembodied nature of Facebook relationships makes it easier to forget who exactly you\u0026rsquo;re speaking to.\nOne more personal example: mere hours after our wedding, my wife and I were tagged in Facebook photos of the event (nevermind the fact that our invitation explicitly asked guests not to do this!), which of course are visible to God-knows-who. We were faced with the decision of waiting to relive our special day through our wedding photographer\u0026rsquo;s photos (which would take a few months to arrive), or seeing people\u0026rsquo;s crappy cameraphone pics immediately, in all their poorly-lit glory. We chose to ignore the Facebook photos, and in fact I still haven\u0026rsquo;t been on to see any of them. My point is: when did it become socially acceptable to publicize photos of a bride and groom to the wider network before said bride and groom can even realistically be expected to be able to see them?\nFacebook is the best tool on the internet for making stuff \u0026lsquo;social\u0026rsquo;. Let\u0026rsquo;s face it, we all use the internet, and we\u0026rsquo;re not going to stop anytime soon. A lot of what we do online is socially oriented, like sharing photos of weddings and parties and vacations with friends. If we ignore the strange social behavior I claim is encouraged by Facebook culture, there\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong at all with sharing photos with friends. This is one of the few things I\u0026rsquo;ve missed about using Facebook, though I guess I could post everything to Flickr and link it up here on my blog, hoping people would find their way to the photos. Likewise, Facebook is the best avenue I know for reliably blasting information to the widest audience I have; that is why I decided to let my blog posts automatically generate updates on Twitter and Facebook. I don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s hypocritical to suggest that these channels are in principle good things.\nI think it\u0026rsquo;s clear that, overall, I\u0026rsquo;m pretty happy with my time away from Facebook. It\u0026rsquo;s enabled me to recognize some of the weird things that happen in its ecosystem, whether or not they are explicitly encouraged by Facebook itself. I also have substantial worries about what social media in general is doing to the concept of real friendship and embodied relationship. I think these are broader worries about the pattern of technology which hopefully I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to explicate in future posts (my ultimate goal will be to blog through a book, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Society, by Albert Borgmann, which has radically reshaped my thinking about the nature of technology). I also hope I don\u0026rsquo;t need to make an exhaustive list of qualifications, e.g., people are weird without Facebook too, and so on\u0026mdash;I simply think there is a definitive pattern of engagement we can discern through observation of social networks, and it\u0026rsquo;s worth taking a critical perspective on that pattern, in order to inform our decisions about how we want to relate with networks like Facebook.\nPS: Justin has reminded me that our friend Jesse Rice has a book about how to engage with social media in a spiritually healthy way: The Church of Facebook. I haven\u0026rsquo;t read it, but it looks interesting! Comments from anyone who\u0026rsquo;s read it?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/02/reflection-why-its-complicated-with-facebook/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003eWhen my wife and I got married at the beginning of last August, we decided not to use Facebook or do (practically) any e-mail during our month-long honeymoon, since we wanted our vacation to be free from social distraction. Afterwards, once we got set up in our apartment in Oxford, I gave myself a little challenge, on a whim: not to open up Facebook until I had a need or strong desire to. While the need was realized once or twice (I maintain a Facebook application called \u003ca href=\"http://apps.facebook.com/booktracker/\"\u003eBookTracker\u003c/a\u003e, and had to update and test some code, which required going to the canvas page for the application), the strong desire wasn\u0026rsquo;t. Thus it happens that, 5 months after my Facebook hiatus officially ended, I still haven\u0026rsquo;t updated my status (although updates are made automatically when I publish a blog) or seen anything in my news feed. Somewhat humorously, Jessica and I haven\u0026rsquo;t even bothered to update our relationship status from \u0026lsquo;Engaged\u0026rsquo; to \u0026lsquo;Married\u0026rsquo;! What follows are a few reflections I now feel prepared to make about Facebook (and a fortiori much of social media in general), given that I\u0026rsquo;ve had a decent amount of time to differentiate from it:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reflection: Why \"It's Complicated\" With Facebook"},{"content":" When I was young, my family had little money, and eating out at all was a luxury. When we did eat out, we tended to frequent such fine establishments as McDonald\u0026rsquo;s, Taco Bell, or (for special occasions) Golden Corral (not sure if they ever made it out of Texas). The evidence of this can be seen in my memories of my 12th birthday dinner (on our birthday dinners we got to pick the meal): I chose a 20-piece box of McDonald\u0026rsquo;s chicken nuggets. Yum! What a tasty treat!\nThankfully, most of the time I ate my mom\u0026rsquo;s cooking, which, while not engineered specifically to crank my food pleasure sensors into panicked overdrive, was at least healthy. Living life on my own in college and afterward, I actually cooked for myself, and by \u0026lsquo;cooked\u0026rsquo; I mean \u0026lsquo;prepared a box of Tuna Helper\u0026rsquo;. When I moved back to Palo Alto, I discovered the endless joys and conveniences of Trader Joe\u0026rsquo;s, and the boxes I purchased went from advertising such bland American fare as \u0026ldquo;Creamy Tuna\u0026rdquo; to exotic culinary experiences like \u0026ldquo;Pad Thai\u0026rdquo;. At no point did I ever think about (a) any kind of \u0026lsquo;health\u0026rsquo; properties of the food, e.g. number of calories (I was active and naturally burnt calories through constant nervous beard-twisting), or (b) any (what you might call) \u0026lsquo;food ethics\u0026rsquo;, e.g. the provenance of the food, whether it was \u0026lsquo;fair trade\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;organic\u0026rsquo;, etc\u0026hellip; I cared about two things: price and flavor!\nCalifornia has this way of sort of oozing \u0026lsquo;organic\u0026rsquo; ideology into your body if you\u0026rsquo;re not careful, though, and soon enough I was vaguely aware that I was supposed to feel that what I was eating was bad, tasteless (in both senses), and just wrong! I have to say, I didn\u0026rsquo;t care that much. Then I went to live in Kenya for a while. While there, I (and my housemates) decided to be vegetarians, in a sort of solidarity with the orphans we were living with (they were too poor to eat meat except on Christmas). For 2 months, I ate exclusively locally-grown vegetarian food, because that is what was available. Also, we were training for a marathon, so I was eating lots of it. Anyway, at some point I had a brief trip back to the States, and stopped at a McDonald\u0026rsquo;s during a road trip. I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to give up on the vegetarian solidarity, so I had them make an Egg McMuffin with no meat. I started to eat it and immediately stopped. It was nauseating. All I could taste was fat and flavor\u0026mdash;and the thing that they said was an egg was certainly not an egg. For the rest of the trip I became sort of a snobby vegetarian person of the kind I would have mocked a few years earlier, all because real food had spoiled me. It just wasn\u0026rsquo;t fun to eat crap anymore, I guess!\nA few months later, after returning to the States for good, I read The Omnivore\u0026rsquo;s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. It\u0026rsquo;s a really good book, and you should read it. It\u0026rsquo;s all about food, and how it\u0026rsquo;s produced and manufactured according to several different \u0026lsquo;food frameworks\u0026rsquo; (industrial, organic, industrial-organic, hunter-gathering, etc\u0026hellip;). It blew the door to questions of \u0026lsquo;food ethics\u0026rsquo; wide open in my mind, and, for better or worse, I can\u0026rsquo;t go back. On top of that, I\u0026rsquo;ve married my wife Jessica, the Queen of All Things Organic Even If There\u0026rsquo;s No Hard Evidence To Suggest They\u0026rsquo;re Any Better. Between her and Michael Pollan (or maybe because of Michael Pollan and despite her efforts to convince my recalcitrant self otherwise), I now exhibit the following characteristics:\nI look at all ingredients in food products before I buy them, and reject any food which contains non-natural ingredients. I\u0026rsquo;ll spend more money to buy organic food if it is available. I\u0026rsquo;ll spend more money to buy local food if it is available. It feels like a serious moral dilemma (because I actually believe it is) when different bits of the ethical food pyramid collide: what\u0026rsquo;s more important? Fair wages for producers or food production which doesn\u0026rsquo;t harm the environment? Slow food is where it\u0026rsquo;s at. The process of producing, gathering, cooking, and eating the food is a sacred one that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be rushed. \u0026hellip;and so on. Essentially, I\u0026rsquo;ve become just the sort of California wacko I never understood before, and find myself on the other side of the same arguments I used to have with Jessica! Strangely, it feels like what I have is a great and integrated way to relate my body to both the world and other people. One other benefit of this approach is avoiding a lot of the crazy things that can happen in the world of highly-processed food, like what I learned with great sadness is how they make my precious McDonald\u0026rsquo;s chicken nuggets. A bit of news that inspired me to write this entry: apparently a recent study claimed to find significant links between genetically-modified corn (the kind of corn which has been genetically engineered in order to withstand the pesticides which are most effective) and several serious disorders in rats. Not surprisingly, trace amounts of the pesticides were found in the rats\u0026rsquo; bodies after ingesting the corn. I guess it makes sense: if you make corn immune to Roundup (a particular popular pesticide herbicide), you will probably use Roundup on it. But Roundup is not good to eat. But, hey\u0026hellip;the corn survived and looks good, so let\u0026rsquo;s eat it! Mmmm, Roundup! \u0026hellip; I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but to me the whole idea seems a bit stupid.\nAnother point that Michael Pollan made in his book is that we might want to be a bit careful of genetically engineered food for reasons other than possibly ingesting pesticide residue. We\u0026rsquo;re discovering that our bodies have evolved in a complex symbiosis with our natural foods, and that, while we can perform chemical magic and make our bodies think they\u0026rsquo;re eating well, after a long time it can lead to degeneration. I\u0026rsquo;m neither doctor nor chemist, so I don\u0026rsquo;t want to overreach my authority, but it does seem like a decent point to consider: at what point does fiddling with the genetic makeup of our food pose a threat to us as eaters? How many generations do we need to test the food on in order to discover whether it\u0026rsquo;s safe? A few, at least, I would think. And all the data I\u0026rsquo;ve seen about people who eat \u0026ldquo;that kind\u0026rdquo; of food suggest that obesity, diabetes, and cancer are what may indeed result.\nAnyway, all this is to say that food is worth thinking about deeply. Not only is it important for the very obvious reason that we need it to live, but it is connected on the level of essence to what makes us human in so many strata other than the biological: it motivates work, drives and sustains social experiences, procures meaningful, enjoyable, and lasting experiences, echoes deep theological principles, and teaches us about our limits and our needs. I hope to write more about this stuff as Jessica and I continue to explore how we engage with food, in a world no longer set up to make the answers to some of our questions obvious. I guess, from the point of view of reflection, that\u0026rsquo;s a good thing!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/01/reflection-food-ethics-and-genetically-modified-corn/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e When I was young, my family had little money, and eating out at all was a luxury. When we did eat out, we tended to frequent such fine establishments as McDonald\u0026rsquo;s, Taco Bell, or (for special occasions) \u003ca href=\"http://www.goldencorral.com/\"\u003eGolden Corral\u003c/a\u003e (not sure if they ever made it out of Texas). The evidence of this can be seen in my memories of my 12th birthday dinner (on our birthday dinners we got to pick the meal): I chose a 20-piece box of McDonald\u0026rsquo;s chicken nuggets. Yum! What a tasty treat!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reflection: Food Ethics and Genetically Modified Corn"},{"content":"Last month has been busy, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t figured out how to blog anything original. But that\u0026rsquo;s ok, because I have a bunch of links for you! These are things I found interesting, provocative, inspiring, or funny in the last month. I\u0026rsquo;m even going to categorize them for you:\nScience Honeybees are found to interact with quantum fields - a researcher noticed that bee dances trace a 2-dimensional projection of formulas of some kind of quantum math. Bee dances seemed pretty arbitrary before, and now this researcher claims that bees may be \u0026lsquo;in touch\u0026rsquo; with quantum fields. If true, this would be interesting and awesome. Scientists find evidence that many universes exist - I\u0026rsquo;ve always thought that \u0026ldquo;many universes\u0026rdquo; is a contradiction in terms, but hey. It turns out that our particular \u0026lsquo;universe\u0026rsquo; may be just one of many \u0026lsquo;cosmic bubbles\u0026rsquo; colliding around in some vast \u0026lsquo;multiverse\u0026rsquo;. I don\u0026rsquo;t believe this yet, and won\u0026rsquo;t until people define their terms better. Thunderstorms generate anti-matter - powerful thunderstorms can generate crazy gamma ray bursts scientists think may be accompanied by anti-matter. That would be anti-awesome. Philosophy Albert Einstein writes on science and religion - some good stuff in here, especially about the awe and surprise of finding that nature has rational foundations. Also other general philosophy of science points. I still disagree with his overall statement, which is that the historically-bound bits of religion should be discarded, since he appears to take for granted their fundamental falsity. Minimalism works - apparently, someone on the Internet made fun of minimalism. The article I linked is a rebuttal which I found concise and useful. Yay minimalism! Culture Suburban sprawl sucks - and it\u0026rsquo;s bad for you too. I confess this was too long for me to read completely, but I did get that the author is an advocate of getting rid of zoning laws. I, too, advocate thus. The dangers of externalizing knowledge - this is a favorite topic of mine. What happens when we stop learning everything except how to Google? It\u0026rsquo;s possible that that is indeed the one skill which leads to success in life, and therefore will encourage social evolution to continue in the current trend. I\u0026rsquo;m just afraid that learning is a holistic process of shaping the entire person, body and soul. What happens when we postpone this shaping until we load Wikipedia? What will our unshaped minds do with that information, anyway? I could go on. Nice to see this on TechCrunch. Caring for your introvert - this guy makes some rather grand statements concerning introversion. Given that I\u0026rsquo;m an introvert, I\u0026rsquo;m inclined to agree with the whole \u0026lsquo;introverts are superior\u0026rsquo; thing, except I know it\u0026rsquo;s false. Good article anyway, despite being overblown. I also think the Enneagram could account for a lot of what he is describing, without as much polarization (or arrogance, for that matter). Theology Agnostic Christianity - doubt isn\u0026rsquo;t bad. In fact, it\u0026rsquo;s an unavoidable part of faith. Embrace and respect it! The Seven: not exactly deacons - what happens when the Apostles decide they\u0026rsquo;re too important to wait tables? God uses the waiters instead. Or something like that\u0026hellip; some good potential pastor-skewering in these passages. Food A coder\u0026rsquo;s guide to coffee - I am a coder and I love coffee. Therefore, I love this article. I just need to find a way to roast my own beans in Oxford\u0026hellip; L-Theanine in tea and not coffee - apparently this amino acid enables our bodies to use caffeine in a much more zenly awesome way. Where is it naturally found? Not coffee (damn!) but tea. If I used coffee as a mind hack, maybe I\u0026rsquo;d switch to tea. Unfortunately, I drink coffee because (a) it tastes really good, and (b) I\u0026rsquo;m physically and psychologically addicted to it. Oh well. A hacker\u0026rsquo;s guide to tea - If I were to switch this is the guide that I\u0026rsquo;d use! One thing I particularly liked: camomille is not real tea! Ha, I always knew camomille sucked. Random Trimensional - a 3d scanner for the iphone. I haven\u0026rsquo;t tried it, but\u0026hellip; really cool idea! I\u0026rsquo;m also not sure what I\u0026rsquo;d do with a 3d model of my face. I\u0026rsquo;m also not sure why they used the guy they did for the screenshots. Yikes! How to draw an owl - Click through and see the picture. Hilarious. And also a good prompt for discussion. So often, what is left out of how-to guides is: \u0026ldquo;now, practice x for thousands of hours\u0026rdquo;. ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2011/01/relay-interesting-stuff-from-the-last-month/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast month has been busy, and I haven\u0026rsquo;t figured out how to blog anything original. But that\u0026rsquo;s ok, because I have a bunch of links for you! These are things I found interesting, provocative, inspiring, or funny in the last month. I\u0026rsquo;m even going to categorize them for you:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"science\"\u003eScience\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.neuroquantology.com/repository/index.php?option=com_content\u0026amp;view=article\u0026amp;id=65:honeybees-are-found-to-interact-with-quantum-fields\u0026amp;catid=59:quantum-field-theory-in-brain\u0026amp;Itemid=70\"\u003eHoneybees are found to interact with quantum fields\u003c/a\u003e - a researcher noticed that bee dances trace a 2-dimensional projection of formulas of some kind of quantum math. Bee dances seemed pretty arbitrary before, and now this researcher claims that bees may be \u0026lsquo;in touch\u0026rsquo; with quantum fields. If true, this would be interesting and awesome.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-scientists-evidence-universes.html\"\u003eScientists find evidence that many universes exist\u003c/a\u003e - I\u0026rsquo;ve always thought that \u0026ldquo;many universes\u0026rdquo; is a contradiction in terms, but hey. It turns out that our particular \u0026lsquo;universe\u0026rsquo; may be just one of many \u0026lsquo;cosmic bubbles\u0026rsquo; colliding around in some vast \u0026lsquo;multiverse\u0026rsquo;. I don\u0026rsquo;t believe this yet, and won\u0026rsquo;t until people define their terms better.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/fermi-thunderstorms.html\"\u003eThunderstorms generate anti-matter\u003c/a\u003e - powerful thunderstorms can generate crazy gamma ray bursts scientists think may be accompanied by anti-matter. That would be anti-awesome.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"philosophy\"\u003ePhilosophy\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/voices-in-time/albert-einstein-solves-the-equation.php?page=3\"\u003eAlbert Einstein writes on science and religion\u003c/a\u003e - some good stuff in here, especially about the awe and surprise of finding that nature has rational foundations. Also other general philosophy of science points. I still disagree with his overall statement, which is that the historically-bound bits of religion should be discarded, since he appears to take for granted their fundamental falsity.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://kirindave.tumblr.com/post/2544990560/minimalism-works\"\u003eMinimalism works\u003c/a\u003e - apparently, someone on the Internet made fun of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living\"\u003eminimalism\u003c/a\u003e. The article I linked is a rebuttal which I found concise and useful. Yay minimalism!\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"culture\"\u003eCulture\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96sep/kunstler/kunstler.htm\"\u003eSuburban sprawl sucks\u003c/a\u003e - and it\u0026rsquo;s bad for you too. I confess this was too long for me to read completely, but I did get that the author is an advocate of getting rid of zoning laws. I, too, advocate thus.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/the-dangers-of-externalizing-knowledge/\"\u003eThe dangers of externalizing knowledge\u003c/a\u003e - this is a favorite topic of mine. What happens when we stop learning everything except how to Google? It\u0026rsquo;s possible that that is indeed the one skill which leads to success in life, and therefore will encourage social evolution to continue in the current trend. I\u0026rsquo;m just afraid that learning is a holistic process of shaping the entire person, body and soul. What happens when we postpone this shaping until we load Wikipedia? What will our unshaped minds do with that information, anyway? I could go on. Nice to see this on TechCrunch.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/\"\u003eCaring for your introvert\u003c/a\u003e - this guy makes some rather grand statements concerning introversion. Given that I\u0026rsquo;m an introvert, I\u0026rsquo;m inclined to agree with the whole \u0026lsquo;introverts are superior\u0026rsquo; thing, except I know it\u0026rsquo;s false. Good article anyway, despite being overblown. I also think the Enneagram could account for a lot of what he is describing, without as much polarization (or arrogance, for that matter).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"theology\"\u003eTheology\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2010/12/agnostic-christianity-faith-for-new.html\"\u003eAgnostic Christianity\u003c/a\u003e - doubt isn\u0026rsquo;t bad. In fact, it\u0026rsquo;s an unavoidable part of faith. Embrace and respect it!\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/01/08/the-seven-not-exactly-deacons/\"\u003eThe Seven: not exactly deacons\u003c/a\u003e - what happens when the Apostles decide they\u0026rsquo;re too important to wait tables? God uses the waiters instead. Or something like that\u0026hellip; some good potential pastor-skewering in these passages.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"food\"\u003eFood\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://blog.moertel.com/pages/coders-guide-to-coffee\"\u003eA coder\u0026rsquo;s guide to coffee\u003c/a\u003e - I am a coder and I love coffee. Therefore, I love this article. I just need to find a way to roast my own beans in Oxford\u0026hellip;\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://worldoftea.org/caffeine-and-l-theanine/\"\u003eL-Theanine in tea and not coffee\u003c/a\u003e - apparently this amino acid enables our bodies to use caffeine in a much more zenly awesome way. Where is it naturally found? Not coffee (damn!) but tea. If I used coffee as a mind hack, maybe I\u0026rsquo;d switch to tea. Unfortunately, I drink coffee because (a) it tastes really good, and (b) I\u0026rsquo;m physically and psychologically addicted to it. Oh well.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://worldoftea.org/hackers-guide-to-tea/\"\u003eA hacker\u0026rsquo;s guide to tea\u003c/a\u003e - If I \u003cem\u003ewere\u003c/em\u003e to switch this is the guide that I\u0026rsquo;d use! One thing I particularly liked: camomille is not real tea! Ha, I always knew camomille sucked.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3 id=\"random\"\u003eRandom\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.trimensional.com/\"\u003eTrimensional\u003c/a\u003e - a 3d scanner for the iphone. I haven\u0026rsquo;t tried it, but\u0026hellip; really cool idea! I\u0026rsquo;m also not sure what I\u0026rsquo;d do with a 3d model of my face. I\u0026rsquo;m also not sure why they used the guy they did for the screenshots. Yikes!\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://ben.casnocha.com/2010/11/how-to-draw-an-owl.html\"\u003eHow to draw an owl\u003c/a\u003e - Click through and see the picture. Hilarious. And also a good prompt for discussion. So often, what is left out of how-to guides is: \u0026ldquo;now, practice \u003cem\u003ex\u003c/em\u003e for thousands of hours\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Relay: Interesting Stuff From the Last Month"},{"content":"A few weeks ago, I came across the description of an extremely inspiring engineering project at Kimball Livingston\u0026rsquo;s blog (pictures and videos taken from there). Basically, conventional wisdom in wind propulsion is that, whatever the wind is propelling, that object can\u0026rsquo;t actually go faster than the wind unless it uses up some kind of stored energy (fuel, rowing, etc\u0026hellip;). Rick Cavallaro thought otherwise, put his ideas out there for how it might work to go dead downwind, faster than the wind, and was roundly ridiculed by pretty much everyone.\nInstead of being disheartened, he put together a team to build the strange propellor-shaped sails that he thought would carry a vehicle faster than the wind. They crafted their land-boat to precise yet hand-made specifications (even using a bicycle wheel!), and set out to test Cavallaro\u0026rsquo;s crazy theory. Here\u0026rsquo;s an initially slow-paced video of the attempt:\nUltimately, they clocked the craft at 2.8x the speed of the wind! This is what I would call ridiculously awesome, and a reminder that physics, if we needed a reminder, is really interesting. I also admire the story of the iconoclastic scientist whose theories were at first mocked and then, not simply proved theoretically possible in a mathematical equation or a lab, but tested out on the salt flats with a guy in a helmet sitting in it! I guess the point is that there are plenty of good ideas out there that just haven\u0026rsquo;t been tried\u0026mdash;and that\u0026rsquo;s something I think I often do need a reminder of.\nCheck out Livingston\u0026rsquo;s blog post for a detailed story of what happened. There\u0026rsquo;s also a Discovery Channel video with interviews, etc\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2010/12/relay-dead-downwind-faster-than-the-wind/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA few weeks ago, I came across the description of an extremely inspiring engineering project at \u003ca href=\"http://kimballlivingston.com/?p=3971\"\u003eKimball Livingston\u0026rsquo;s blog\u003c/a\u003e (pictures and videos taken from there). Basically, conventional wisdom in wind propulsion is that, whatever the wind is propelling, that object can\u0026rsquo;t actually go faster than the wind unless it uses up some kind of stored energy (fuel, rowing, etc\u0026hellip;). Rick Cavallaro thought otherwise, put his ideas out there for how it might work to go dead downwind, faster than the wind, and was roundly ridiculed by pretty much everyone.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Relay: Dead Downwind Faster Than The Wind"},{"content":" One of the topics which has really captured my attention over the last few years is \u0026ldquo;non-violent resistance\u0026rdquo;. I\u0026rsquo;ve been introduced to the concept largely through Walter Wink\u0026rsquo;s work on \u0026ldquo;the powers\u0026rdquo;, though Wink makes use of René Girard, whom I really like, as well. Additionally, attending a talk by Miroslav Volf gave me a lot of food for thought! Non-violent resistance is a complicated idea with a simple (and, from the viewpoint of many, absurd) moral logic: (a) evil is bad, therefore (b) we should name and resist evil, but (c) we cannot do this with violence, since it is evil and therefore counter-productive to the eradication of evil itself.\nThis brief moral statement has captivated me, not only because it seems to make a lot of sense, but also because of how infrequently such a morality is even attempted to be lived out on a large scale. Regardless of how things have been throughout human history, there is still in our world a great deal of \u0026ldquo;conflict resolution\u0026rdquo; which is really one party using violence or the threat of violence to get their way. Is there a different way, a third way which avoids the problems with both violent conflict and pacifist inaction? More importantly, how could such a third way be effective against guns? Needless to say, these kinds of deliberations deserve book-length treatment, and I\u0026rsquo;ll probably be unable to think fully about such questions in blog entries, however often I might muse about them.\nAnyway, my thoughts about non-violence also typically lead to thoughts about armies, and the US Armed Forces in particular, whose fundamental purpose seems to be to pursue the aims of the US through violence or the threat of violence. I know that the forces are trained to do more than kill, and often engage in humanitarian activities; those, however, are incidental to the actual purpose of the military (otherwise, why guns?). Thoughts like these were triggered again a few days ago, when I was sent this Veteran\u0026rsquo;s Day video, originally found on the NRA\u0026rsquo;s website. You might as well watch it, since it\u0026rsquo;s what this post is about:\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know if anyone else had this reaction, but I found the video deeply ironic. The climax of the speech was a story about a soldier\u0026rsquo;s heroism which was designed to evoke pride in the soldier\u0026rsquo;s action and therefore pride in our country by his representation. It did this very well: to think that a Navy corpsman would rush into a firefight in order to rescue a wounded enemy is extremely moving, and I am awed at the courageous act. The irony, for me, was that the action so lauded of this marine by Oliver North was precisely the kind of action I don\u0026rsquo;t imagine is military protocol: an action of non-violent compassion in the face of a very real danger of violence. We rightly take pride in our association by nationality with a hero like the one in this story, but I wonder whether he was acting fully as a dispenser of his duties? Maybe, on the other hand, the mutual recognition of humanity in the enemy triggered this heroic rescue?\nI\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;m very ignorant of actual battle protocol in the army, and maybe there is a command to merely disable the enemy so that they can be rescued, given medical attention, and imprisoned or rehabilitated. Something tells me, however, that US generals would be pretty concerned if all of their soldiers were in the habit of risking their lives for wounded Iraqi insurgents. My point is that the story is so powerful it got told at an NRA annual meeting even when the power in the story comes from the fact that the corpsman didn\u0026rsquo;t use his weapon!\nIt got me thinking: what if there were a force of women and men trained in almost all the same ways as Marines, such that they were physically and mentally prepared to run into dangerous situations to rescue others, but who were unwilling to do violence to anyone they encountered? Reason says they\u0026rsquo;d all get slaughtered, but\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s also a really interesting thought.\nSo much of what the NRA video did was to evoke pride and respect at the various skills and disciplines involved in being a soldier: taking care of oneself, cleaning one\u0026rsquo;s gun, walking all day in 120-degree heat without complaint, sharing the last vestiges of life with a dying comrade, and so on. We are naturally drawn to glorify such skill and sacrifice, and I admit it is impressive. However, when is it appropriate to stop asking what the skill is used for?\nStories draw upon this natural awe at great skill all the time, and so we can root for the team of skillful thieves even though what they are doing is illegal, and if their theft was directed at us we would prosecute them. Likewise, it is easy to glorify the warrior because the warrior is talented, skillful, and disciplined. The process of becoming a warrior teaches valuable personal skills, delivers confidence, etc\u0026hellip; But does our adulation of the skillfulness involved in battle cloud over the fact that what we are adulating, at the end of the day, is battle, i.e., people killing each other? Killing isn\u0026rsquo;t what the average soldier does on any given day, but let\u0026rsquo;s face it: what country on earth trains their army in every skill except for shooting people?\nEssentially, what I\u0026rsquo;m saying is that the fact that somebody is well-trained at something doesn\u0026rsquo;t make that thing good! We might have well-trained rapists and murderers walking around, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t making them any more honorable or less deserving of incarceration. I hasten to add that I don\u0026rsquo;t equate soldiers with criminals! What they do is legitimated by every nation in the history of our species, and at the end of the day perhaps necessary to procure a slightly greater amount of peace, or stop evil from taking over the entire earth. I\u0026rsquo;m not convinced of that, though admittedly I don\u0026rsquo;t know very much yet. I\u0026rsquo;m also not convinced that, even if that necessity has held in the past, it has to hold in the future. I believe that however necessary we think war is, we should always be deeply saddened by it and ashamed of it as a human race.\nAnother curious point from the NRA video is the connection North makes between warfare and faith. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what he meant, but it sounded like he said most soldiers are in the armed forces because of faith. Is that faith in freedom, or religious faith? If it\u0026rsquo;s religious faith (and North only showed examples of Christians), I\u0026rsquo;m even more concerned: as I look at Jesus, I don\u0026rsquo;t see a whole lot to commend violence, whether as a first or last resort. Moreover, the connection between praying before battle and praying before football highlights another worry: in either case, do you think God wants one team to lose, one to win?\nOne parting quote from the Ring of Freedom website:\nThink of the fearless men and women who put on a uniform every day to make freedom possible\u0026mdash;because there are no freedoms, without those willing to fight for them.\nThis is one of the stickiest points of this whole business: isn\u0026rsquo;t freedom worth dying to protect? Isn\u0026rsquo;t it worth killing to protect? Isn\u0026rsquo;t self-determination so basic a human right we\u0026rsquo;re justified in exterminating those who hinder others from experiencing it? I just don\u0026rsquo;t know; killing someone sure seems like a good way to end their experiment in self-determination! The Marine who rescued the Iraqi soldier, on the other hand, gave him that, and more: the knowledge that an enemy from the other side of the planet cared enough about his humanity to risk his life making sure it didn\u0026rsquo;t end. Now that is inspiring!\nPS: I think it goes without saying that I greatly respect the sacrifices of those who have selflessly given their lives for causes greater than themselves. I respect that the average soldier has nothing to do with the motivations which lead her country into war, and whether they approximate those of a \u0026lsquo;just\u0026rsquo; war. And I respect that the cycle of violence thrusts violence upon citizens of the world when they do not deserve it. However, I do believe that cycle needs to be examined, and that sacrifice must be respected with a conscious understanding of the goal of that sacrifice! Lastly, I am acutely aware that, whatever the morality of the wars that secured my freedom, I do make use of a freedom which was gained by someone fighting for it, and I am indeed thankful for that freedom. I simply hope that we can find a better way to procure it! And that won\u0026rsquo;t happen if we assume what we currently have is good enough.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2010/12/reaction-ring-of-freedom/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Non_violence_sculpture_by_carl_fredrik_reutersward_malmo_sweden.jpg\" title=\"By Francois Polito (Appareil numérique OLYMPUS C700UZ) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Non violence sculpture by carl fredrik reutersward malmo sweden\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Non_violence_sculpture_by_carl_fredrik_reutersward_malmo_sweden.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e One of the topics which has really captured my attention over the last few years is \u0026ldquo;non-violent resistance\u0026rdquo;. I\u0026rsquo;ve been introduced to the concept largely through \u003ca href=\"http://www.walterwink.com/\"\u003eWalter Wink\u0026rsquo;s\u003c/a\u003e work on \u0026ldquo;the powers\u0026rdquo;, though Wink makes use of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard\"\u003eRené Girard\u003c/a\u003e, whom \u003ca href=\"/2008/07/the-dark-knight-and-rene-girard/\"\u003eI really like\u003c/a\u003e, as well. Additionally, attending a talk by \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Volf\"\u003eMiroslav Volf\u003c/a\u003e gave me a lot of food for thought! Non-violent resistance is a complicated idea with a simple (and, from the viewpoint of many, absurd) moral logic: (a) evil is bad, therefore (b) we should name and resist evil, but (c) we cannot do this with violence, since it is evil and therefore counter-productive to the eradication of evil itself.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Reaction: Ring of Freedom"},{"content":"In the year and four months since I last bothered to post anything here, a lot has happened. Chief among these events was my proposing to and actually marrying my now-wife, Jessica! I also began a graduate program in linguistics at Oxford, and am in the second year of that program, finding great enjoyment in it as well as in exploring Oxford with Jessica. The hectic pace of life in the last year and a half did not keep me from having ponderings worth blogging about, but it did keep me from actually blogging about them. Also, I noticed that the ability to post snappy one-liners as Facebook status updates, or to share a link with only a brief description, tended to siphon away any drive to construct actual extended discussions here (a phenomenon which I\u0026rsquo;m sure is quite widespread).\nTwo factors draw me back to the blog despite overwhelming opposition from laziness (among other things): first, Jessica has been encouraging me to write on certain topics we discuss from time to time. Second, I haven\u0026rsquo;t been to my Facebook homepage in four months, and thus have a list of things I actually want to say to The Internet which haven\u0026rsquo;t been said even in short form.\nThe purpose of this post is simply to clear the stage, and as such is primarily for myself. It simply wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do, in my brain at least, to go from an entry about the release of Summer of Rock 2009 to a discussion about the linguistic behavior of Americans in Oxford, 16 months later. And that is partly why the longer I waited to write, the less inclined I was to do so. Now that\u0026rsquo;s changed.\nIn short\u0026ndash;coming soon: something else!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2010/11/changes-come/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the year and four months since I last bothered to post anything here, a lot has happened. Chief among these events was my proposing to and actually marrying my now-wife, Jessica! I also began a graduate program in linguistics at Oxford, and am in the second year of that program, finding great enjoyment in it as well as in exploring Oxford with Jessica. The hectic pace of life in the last year and a half did not keep me from having ponderings worth blogging about, but it did keep me from actually blogging about them. Also, I noticed that the ability to post snappy one-liners as Facebook status updates, or to share a link with only a brief description, tended to siphon away any drive to construct actual extended discussions here (a phenomenon which I\u0026rsquo;m sure is quite widespread).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Changes (Have) Come"},{"content":" We\u0026rsquo;re now over halfway through the summer, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean it\u0026rsquo;s too late for rock. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to announce the 4th edition of my annual Summer of Rock compilation! Although it\u0026rsquo;s late in coming, it\u0026rsquo;s not short on good music. I know you want to squeeze the most out of the remaining 5 weeks of summer anyway \u0026ndash; and now you have the perfect companion to your adventures!\nHere is the playlist (you can download the songs immediately below it):\nThe Only One, by Manchester Orchestra (from \u0026ldquo;Mean Everything To Nothing\u0026rdquo;) The Fox, The Crow And The Cookie, by Mewithoutyou (from \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s All Crazy! It\u0026rsquo;s All False! It\u0026rsquo;s All A Dream! It\u0026rsquo;s Alright\u0026rdquo;) Holland, 1945, by Neutral Milk Hotel (from \u0026ldquo;In the Aeroplane Over the Sea\u0026rdquo;) Little Bribes, by Death Cab For Cutie (from \u0026ldquo;The Open Door EP\u0026rdquo;) You, Me, \u0026amp; The Bourgeoisie, by The Submarines (from \u0026ldquo;Honeysuckle Weeks\u0026rdquo;) Just Let Go, by Mae (from \u0026ldquo;Singularity\u0026rdquo;) Restart, by Jeremy Enigk (from \u0026ldquo;OK Bear\u0026rdquo;) Nation Of Heat, by Joe Pug (from \u0026ldquo;Nation of Heat EP\u0026rdquo;) Behind Your Eyes, by Jon Foreman (from \u0026ldquo;Limbs And Branches\u0026rdquo;) Folding Chair, by Regina Spektor (from \u0026ldquo;Far\u0026rdquo;) Girlfriend, by Phoenix (from \u0026ldquo;Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix\u0026rdquo;) People Got a Lotta Nerve, by Neko Case (from \u0026ldquo;Middle Cyclone\u0026rdquo;) Fight Song, by Appleseed Cast (from \u0026ldquo;Two Conversations\u0026rdquo;) (It\u0026rsquo;s A) Departure, by The Long Winters (from \u0026ldquo;Putting The Days To Bed\u0026rdquo;) Hallucinations, by The Raveonettes (from \u0026ldquo;Lust Lust Lust\u0026rdquo;) Death Of A Tune, by The Hidden Cameras (from \u0026ldquo;AWOO\u0026rdquo;) French Navy, by Camera Obscura (from \u0026ldquo;My Maudlin Career\u0026rdquo;) Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, by Sigur Rós (from \u0026ldquo;Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust\u0026rdquo;) The Things You Cherish Most, by Pajaro Sunrise (from \u0026ldquo;Done / Undone\u0026rdquo;) Broken (New/Radio Version), by Lifehouse (from \u0026ldquo;Who We Are\u0026rdquo;) Man Down, by The New Frontiers (from \u0026ldquo;Mending\u0026rdquo;) The Gardener, by The Tallest Man On Earth (from \u0026ldquo;Shallow grave\u0026rdquo;) Download and setup instructions (sorry, but you will need iTunes):\nDownload the zip file here: Summer of Rock 2009 Unzip the files to your desktop or some other location (this will create a folder called Summer of Rock 2009). Drag the folder into your iTunes software (typically, dragging it onto the \u0026ldquo;Music\u0026rdquo; label underneath \u0026ldquo;LIBRARY\u0026rdquo; is the safest way to do this \u0026ndash; you\u0026rsquo;ll see a \u0026ldquo;+\u0026rdquo; sign before you know it\u0026rsquo;s OK to release the mouse button). This should copy the song files to your iTunes library. You will see a new compilation in your library (you may need to go to Music:Compilations to see it). You can play the songs from here or create a playlist of them and burn the songs to a disc! Now, you can safely delete the \u0026ldquo;Summer of Rock 2009\u0026rdquo; folder and the zip file, as the song files should be safely organized by iTunes. Legal notice: the point of this compilation is to introduce you to new music and encourage you to buy songs and merchandise from the artists you like, through legal channels. If you are not open to supporting the artists financially by buying their music, please don\u0026rsquo;t download this compilation.\nThanks, and enjoy! Please share any comments!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2009/08/summer-of-rock-2009/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e We\u0026rsquo;re now over halfway through the summer, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean it\u0026rsquo;s too late for rock. I\u0026rsquo;m happy to announce the 4th edition of my annual Summer of Rock compilation! Although it\u0026rsquo;s late in coming, it\u0026rsquo;s not short on good music. I know you want to squeeze the most out of the remaining 5 weeks of summer anyway \u0026ndash; and now you have the perfect companion to your adventures!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Summer of Rock 2009"},{"content":"I took a trip recently, occasioned by dirt-cheap airfare and the fact that my parents were going already, to Germany and England. Awesomely, Jessica was also able to come! We spent a few days in Edelsfeld, Germany, the tiny town where my sister and her husband live. Then it was off to Cambridge, England, for a night with our friends Eric and Nicki. Eric is a student there, and we were able to have an inside look at some of Cambridge\u0026rsquo;s colleges. We spent the bulk of our time, however, in Oxford, where I\u0026rsquo;ve been accepted to read for a Linguistics degree this Autumn. We had the good fortune to stay with some friends from Schloss Mittersill who live in Oxford, and spent the days cruising around town, visiting colleges and pubs! Finally, we had a fun two days in London at the end of the trip before heading home. Here are two photo sets with pictures from the trip! As you can tell, on this trip I focused a lot on architecture, and enhancing the ancient buildings using HDR techniques. Enjoy!\nGermany 3-2009 England 3-2009\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2009/03/photos-from-germany-and-england/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI took a trip recently, occasioned by dirt-cheap airfare and the fact that my parents were going already, to Germany and England. Awesomely, Jessica was also able to come! We spent a few days in Edelsfeld, Germany, the tiny town where my sister and her husband live. Then it was off to Cambridge, England, for a night with our friends Eric and Nicki. Eric is a student there, and we were able to have an inside look at some of Cambridge\u0026rsquo;s colleges. We spent the bulk of our time, however, in Oxford, where I\u0026rsquo;ve been accepted to read for a Linguistics degree this Autumn. We had the good fortune to stay with some friends from Schloss Mittersill who live in Oxford, and spent the days cruising around town, visiting colleges and pubs! Finally, we had a fun two days in London at the end of the trip before heading home. Here are two photo sets with pictures from the trip! As you can tell, on this trip I focused a lot on architecture, and enhancing the ancient buildings using HDR techniques. Enjoy!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photos from Germany and England"},{"content":" Today I ran my first marathon, and I wanted to write about it - not because it was a fast marathon or one that, from a running time perspective, I am proud of. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t and I\u0026rsquo;m not. But I think today\u0026rsquo;s marathon taught me a lot about life and spirituality, and allowed me to express both humility and my own form of personal heroism in a way that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t before. The marathon taught me these things, of course, in a way that only a 26.2-mile slog can. What follows is a race report, but also my reflections on the process that led me to the finish line in a (relatively to my training) unremarkable 4 hours and 8 minutes. Warning: this will be long, but (I hope) worth the read. And I haven\u0026rsquo;t written anything since December so you readers ought to indulge me. Warning 2: Profanities will probably be involved. They go hand-in-hand with marathons.\nThe story of today\u0026rsquo;s marathon started almost exactly two years ago in March of 2007, when I first spent time at the Tumaini Children\u0026rsquo;s Home in Nyeri, Kenya. It was there I volunteered during the creation of Hope Runs. At that time, we decided to train some of the older students (including a student named Karicho, who comes into the story later) for a marathon in June. Although I had to go back to the states before the June marathon, I decided to continue the marathon training I\u0026rsquo;d accidentally fallen into, and run the San Francisco marathon (which happened, fortuitously for solidarity with my Kenya friends, to be on the same day as the marathon the students were running in Kenya). My training was abruptly ended, however, when an injury in the Achilles tendon area that I developed on the long runs became so painful and unhealthy-feeling that I decided I couldn\u0026rsquo;t run the race. This Achilles problem already had the makings of a chronic injury - it had first arisen over a year prior, at that time also halting some athletic training and being a part of the inspiration that (perhaps ironically) led to my sabbatical time in Kenya.\nWhen I knew that I was going to return to Kenya in October 2007 to volunteer for 6 months and train for the Kilimanjaro marathon, again with Hope Runs students, I decided to get physical therapy to figure out my almost-literal Achilles heel. Armed with more knowledge and rehab exercises as a result, I was confident that plenty of time and not running on pavement would lead to a successful marathon. Again, my goal in running the Kilimanjaro marathon was primarily to have something to work towards with the Hope Runs students, and also to run to the best of my ability. Since the Kilimanjaro marathon was at elevation and quite hilly, I had no expectations of a fast race. Soon enough, I was in Kenya, training with the coach, Titus, and everyone else. Although my ankle problem arose a few times, and even once prevented me from running a 30k race in Nairobi, for the most part it seemed to have gone away, and I was hopeful that I had worked through it.\nWell, a month before the race, I got word that my sister was going to have a wedding on March 3 - the day after the Kilimanjaro marathon. Attending these two events was therefore mutually exclusive, and so I left for the states before I could run the marathon. Fortunately (and echoing the previous year), I discovered that the Napa Valley Marathon was on March 1, the same day as the Kili marathon. Once again, I was excited to run a marathon in the US on the same day as my friends in Kenya (including Karicho and fellow volunteers from Palo Alto Michael and Emilee, with now-girlfriend Jessica acting as videographer). My first run back in the States was 4 or 5 days before the marathon, and was a simple 7-miler. Unfortunately, whether it was running on pavement or the leg trauma of sitting on planes for 2 days, my Achilles problem came back in a serious way, making it extremely painful even to walk. On the day before the race, I went for a test jog and came back limping, in no state to run 5 miles let alone 26. Deeply frustrated, I called the Napa race coordinators and asked if they could roll my registration to next year. Of course, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know if there would be a next year in terms of my running, but at least it left the window open.\nAt the time, though, having to forgo the race I\u0026rsquo;d trained 4 months in Kenya for was a huge disappointment, and certainly created some bitterness and resentment (offset, I have to admit, by the happiness in being a part of my sister\u0026rsquo;s wedding, and then a few days later hearing I was accepted to Oxford). But this resentment: toward whom? Not myself, really; I\u0026rsquo;d done everything I could and knew how to do, and I\u0026rsquo;d trained well. Toward circumstances, or God, I guess. Now, I\u0026rsquo;m not the sort of person who, believing God exists and cares for people, holds God to be directly responsible for pleasant \u0026ldquo;coincidences\u0026rdquo; (Oh, darn [good religious people will say \u0026lsquo;darn\u0026rsquo; rather than \u0026lsquo;damn\u0026rsquo;] I lost my keys. Where are they? God, help me find me keys! Oh, look, here they are! God, thank you for bringing my keys back!) The danger in this way of thinking isn\u0026rsquo;t, to my mind, believing that God can and does interact with people on small, everyday levels. The problem is, if God is responsible for pleasant coincidences, what do we say about the unpleasant ones? If we say the unpleasant ones happen by chance, what is there to distinguish their causal histories from the pleasant ones\u0026rsquo; causal histories that could lead us to belief that God causes the pleasant and not the unpleasant? The only difference seems to be our definition of \u0026lsquo;pleasant\u0026rsquo;, which seems like it has a lot more to do with us than God. In which case, we attribute finding our lost keys to God on the pain of also having to attribute to him our losing them in the first place. But my main point is, it sure is easy to turn general gratitude into specific attribution, and general frustration into specific blame. And, counter to my own beliefs, I probably blamed God for some of my misfortune.\nSo much for that theodical interlude. (And by the way, the God-statements I have made and will make in these reflections are by no means intended to stand on their own, in terms of rational justifiability, for those of you who care about such things [and you all should]. End disclaimer). Anyway, time passed, things happened, I didn\u0026rsquo;t go to Oxford in October 2008 as I\u0026rsquo;d hoped, and I realized that I was still signed up for the 2009 Napa marathon. Alright, I thought to myself, this time I\u0026rsquo;m gonna do it. Third time\u0026rsquo;s the charm. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna train the hell out of this marathon, be super smart about my Achilles, and make it happen. I started looking at training programs to follow, and it occurred to me that I could take advantage of the easy Napa course and train for a specific time. Ultimately, I became enamored with the idea of running the marathon in the 3:10 - 3:20 range, with 3:10 (a 7:15 minute-per-mile pace) being the Boston qualifying cutoff for my age group (a significant benchmark in marathon running), and 3:20 being a respectable 7:37 minute-per-mile pace. At the start of my training, my 10k pace was 7:15 or so (and 6 miles is a far cry from 26), but I figured with 5 months I could improve significantly.\nWhat I\u0026rsquo;m trying to convey with all of these details is that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t just training to run a marathon: I was training to run a marathon that would make up for both of the previous \u0026ldquo;Did Not Start\u0026rdquo; marathons in virtue of the achievement that it represented for me as a runner. If I could run a 3:10 marathon, I would be a \u0026lsquo;real runner\u0026rsquo; (never mind the relativity of \u0026lsquo;real\u0026rsquo;, and never mind that \u0026lsquo;real runners\u0026rsquo; run marathons at paces as low as 4:48). In order to do this, and in order to not get injured, I knew that I\u0026rsquo;d have to follow the program rigorously (skimping on the mid-week runs was a previous source of injury on long runs), and treat my body very well. In short, I needed to be a kind of athlete that I\u0026rsquo;d never been in my life: disciplined and dedicated. I was looking forward to race day with great anticipation, believing that it would prove that I (even I, nerdy little Jonathan Lipps), could accomplish something significant in a sport.\nSo I did train. I was religious in my running. I did treat my body well, with clean and abundant vegetarian carbs and proteins, and almost-weekly massages. And wonder of wonders, I saw improvement. Amidst the pain and boredom, I was getting faster and stronger. I was training on pavement, yet my ankles were holding up. I was noticing that I could hold sub-7 paces for multiple miles, which I\u0026rsquo;d never done before. My long runs were hard of course, but that struggle was familiar, and soon I had reached the peak of training - my 22-mile long run - and finished it without injury.\nUnfortunately, as we know from all sports movies, after the pump-up training montage, there comes a chilling moment when the true challenge is unveiled - maybe the star player leaves the team exposed, or the opposing side employs some dastardly trickery. The Kryptonite to my Supermarathon was unleashed 2 weeks ago, on my \u0026lsquo;cool down\u0026rsquo; long run of 18 miles. Maybe it was the waterlogged shoes (it was raining for most of the run), a different lacing style, or the lack of massage that week, or maybe it was just God making a sports movie, but my Achilles pain came back hard. Between miles 11 and 15 I suffered through various amounts of pain on the back of my left ankle, but it eventually became so sharp and fiery I knew it wasn\u0026rsquo;t worth pushing through. In fact, maybe I had already pushed through too much. When I woke up the next morning after icing and rest, and found that I could barely walk on it, I knew I was in trouble. A mere 12 days to the marathon, and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t walk. How was I going to recover in time? What about the tuning runs? Etc\u0026hellip;\nIt was a depressing few days, as the ghosts of old frustrations haunted the new ones and as they all haunted me. Jessica (who incidentally and wonderfully had her best long run on the same day I got injured) was hard-pressed to keep me positive and not to despair. Determined not to give in to the same failure as in previous years, I did everything I could to heal the ankle. I iced and rested and elevated and compressed, and hoped and prayed that with almost two weeks of healing, I could be back in shape by marathon time. Slowly, I did feel things improve, and soon I was walking on the ankle without noticing any pain. In the week before the marathon, I decided that I needed to keep up my aerobic activity, and even chanced a few elliptical workouts, without any adverse reactions. I felt, basically, that remaining positive and doing everything I could to treat my injury well was working!\nThe marathon drew nearer. Early the day before, my parents drove Jessica and me up to Napa, where we were all going to spend the night before the race. That whole day I focused on managing my pre-race nutrition, stretching, massaging, and resting. Although my ankle felt good and strong, the barest of ghost pains still lingered when I would use it in different ways, keeping doubt a live option. Additionally, a light but consistent rain was predicted to start falling, and to remain all the way through the marathon. Given that the last time I ran a long run in consistent rain was when I ruined my Achilles, I was a bit worried about this prospect. The fact that the always-helpful Weather Underground wind direction indicators said that we would have a 10-15 mph headwind for the whole way was just one more worry to try and shove aside.\nWhile I\u0026rsquo;m being honest about the worry, I really was engaged in positive thinking about the race. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t do anything about the rain, the wind, or even (anymore) my ankle. I had eaten and drunk exactly what I was supposed to, and I had trained exactly how I was supposed to (well, until I was injured). Aside from the circumstances out of my control, I was in as good a shape as I could possibly be. I knew that I was at least going to start the race, and give it my best shot. The question of what I would do if I started to feel my injury during the race would come into my mind from time to time, but I would ignore it, since trying to answer it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have fit the positive spirit I was trying to cultivate. And eventually, it was time to sleep. After a bit of tossing and turning, it was 4:30 AM. Marathon Day.\nJessica and I dressed and ate what we needed, then packed up the car for our 5:30 departure to the start of the marathon on the Silverado Trail. As we drove, the rain beat on the windshield, and falling leaves betrayed the presence of the predicted steady wind. Somewhat anticlimactically, we had to stop and unceremoniously hurry out of the car because of the traffic control situation. A brief hug each and we were walking the last few blocks to the start. Excitement started to dawn with the sun - we were doing this! After stowing our sweat bags and finding inappropriate places to relieve ourselves before the swiftly-approaching start time, Jessica and I gathered near the line and waited the last 5 minutes. In what seemed like the next instant, a fire engine bell sounded to mark the start of the marathon, and we were off!\nMy first few strides were cautious, then more confident, and then exuberant, as I felt my body falling into my warm-up pace, with no noticeable discomfort in my ankle! My eyes welled up with tears of gratitude as I realized that all of the physical and mental and emotional buildup of the past 5 months had finally culminated in this one moment. I had persevered through the injury that had killed my previous marathon attempts, and I was running the race!\nSoon enough, I was focused on the running, checking my pace, waiting to hit my post-warm-up 7:10 average pace. The rain was constant but light, the hills frequent but mellow, and I was enjoying being out on the road again. I saw my parents (who were playing crew for us) at mile 4 and mile 7, and was so happy to be waving, smiling, and running strong as I passed them. Their thoughts and prayers and concerns had been with me for two weeks, and I could tell they were elated I was OK.\nSomewhere around mile 10, everything changed. A slight flutter in my left Achilles reminded me of my injury there. I took the pace down a notch and tried to breathe easier. That twinge had brought reality to my race - if I took it easier, could I stave off the inevitable excruciating pain and still finish in a good time? I already felt that 3:10 was out of reach. Backing off my target pace at all, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to make it. But that\u0026rsquo;s OK, I thought: better to run the whole marathon than become injured and have to quit. Before too long, these thoughts became moot. In less than a half mile, the twinge became the full blown expression of painful injury that I had rested two weeks to avoid. It was back, and I hadn\u0026rsquo;t even finished half the race! Inside, I howled with anger and frustration. All of the gratitude and elation of the start evaporated. My gait became uneven as I tried to take a bit of weight I could off my left foot. The continuous bank of the road, in one direction or another, became a serious problem in this effort. But, I was still moving.\nAt 11.5 miles (my average pace now up to 7:36), I saw my parents, and stopped in pain. They grieved to see I wasn\u0026rsquo;t doing well, but I wasn\u0026rsquo;t ready to quit just yet. I told my dad that I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;d be able to finish the race, but I could try and make it to mile 15 (the last place I thought I\u0026rsquo;d see my parents along the course, and the last chance I\u0026rsquo;d have for a ride out). In the meantime, with nothing to lose anymore, and hopes of a decent finishing time obliterated, I took the time to take off my waterlogged left shoe, which I figured was a major cause of the recurrence of my Achilles injury. I replaced it with a dry sock and a dry training shoe, and took off again.\nThe dry shoe did little to help, but it was a bit more comfortable as I settled into my awkward running style. As the pain in my tendon grew worse, I tried to put less and less weight on it, until I\u0026rsquo;m sure I looked like someone trying to make a funny impression of a cantering horse rider. A few people asked if I was alright, but of course there was nothing anyone could do. It was me stupidly running with an injury, after all! I tried to hum some songs, play mind games, or do anything to take my thoughts off the pain (and more than the pain, the frustration of training 5 months - really 2 years - only to be defeated once again).\nIt was in that state, around mile 14, that I noticed someone running on the other side of the road, against the direction of the marathon. As he got closer, I recognized him as none other than my friend Karicho, from Kenya! A few months ago, he had been sponsored to come to the states to live with Michael and go to school here. Seeing him, I realized that he, Michael, and Emilee must have driven up from Palo Alto that morning to surprise Jessica and I and support us on our run! That alone was enough to bring tears to my eyes, but then remembering all the training runs Karicho and I had been on together in Kenya (including my first Nyeri run, in the pitch dark early morning over hilly dirt roads with the smell of charcoal fires sleeping), remembering what marathoning really stood for in terms of my life history (solidarity with the Tumaini kids), and seeing that here was a Tumaini kid in Napa, running cheerfully in the rain, just to make my run feel better, in a remarkable and humbling role reversal\u0026hellip; I have to pause right now while writing this because of the potent emotion still alive in that memory!\nNone of that, nor Karicho\u0026rsquo;s unworried acceptance of the fact I was injured (as if it didn\u0026rsquo;t really change anything) took away the pain or frustration of what I was experiencing. It did make me see it in a different light. I felt a bit calmer, more resigned. And as we neared mile 15, I asked Karicho if he could run ahead and ask my dad to get out the ace bandage I\u0026rsquo;d left with him that morning. I showed up at the mile marker and saw my mom and dad, but also Emilee and Michael, smiling and cheering me on. Their presence lifted my spirits, and I asked them to help bandage up my left ankle to see if it would help. It didn\u0026rsquo;t really feel like it at the time (I was concerned with the details of the bandaging), but that was the point where I actually decided to run the marathon. 5 months prior, I had decided to run a marathon. On every day of training that had led up to the race, I had decided to run a marathon. Even that morning, I had decided to run a marathon. But it wasn\u0026rsquo;t until mile 15, when all hopes of running a good marathon, an impressive marathon, a fun marathon, or an easy marathon were dashed, that I decided to run this marathon. It was, unfortunately, the only marathon left for me to run. And so I had to decide whether I wanted to quit, go home, train again, and try some other time for the marathon I desired, or whether I was going to accept all of the things outside of my control, and finish what I started, even though it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be perfect (or even good), and even though it would hurt a lot.\nI think it was a powerful decision, and the turning point in this whole story. The marathon finally went from being something that I played with in my mind and dreamed about, to something that burned me with its harsh reality. It went from being a sports science project to an insurmountable personal challenge. In short, it became what marathons are, in terms of their potential for psychological and spiritual growth: dragons needing slaying. When I started the race, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t on a quest, but I was now. I was on a quest to survive, and surviving meant moving my injured ass 11 more miles, over hills and through rain.\nThat is what I did. And believe me, it was hard. I\u0026rsquo;ll spare you the dramatic play-by-play of the last half of the race, because it would go something like this: Ouch ouch ouch shit ouch ouch ouch fuck ouch ouch shit ouch damn this marathon ouch ouch. Etc\u0026hellip; The worst part about it was that, shortly after mile 15, my ankle injury became the least of my worries. My muscles, perhaps overtired because of the heavy shoes and my inhuman gait, basically stopped responding. My heart rate, perhaps because of what I was trying to demand from my unresponsive muscles, skyrocketed to something absurd for the pace at which I was moving. And my nerves kept receiving messages from my unresponsive muscles that told my brain that I was in hell.\nNone of this made sense to me, after having run long training runs of up to 22 miles without any problem. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t figure out what was wrong, and nothing I did could fix it. This was an unexpected pain - not my ankle injury but a full-body sensation that I should not be doing this. I drank gatorade, ate bananas and Gu, and walked when the pain became unbearable. Uphill, downhill, it was all the same to me - there was no difference in pain. I stopped occasionally to re-wrap my ace bandage, and wanted to sit down, cry, and lament my misfortune. But I knew I could stop at any time, and I knew that sitting down wouldn\u0026rsquo;t get me any closer to the finish line. So through the last monotonous 6 miles of rain and wind I trudged, no longer limping because my brain had stopped registering my ankle as hurting. Instead, everything was hurting.\nMy walking became more frequent, and I felt more and more out of it, until finally I came to the last mile. Whatever else happens, I said to myself, I am going to run the last fucking mile of this stupid fucking marathon. So I stopped walking, picked up my quads (I swore I could almost see the invisible knives sticking out of my flesh), told my hamstrings to stop their senseless cramping, and hobbled along in the best imitation of a run I could physically manage. Right then, Karicho came gliding up beside me, where he told me he\u0026rsquo;d just come from Jessica (as it turns out, he left her at mile 18), and was timing himself to the finish. Then he sped off, leaving everyone around me a bit angry at his effortless stride.\nMy marathon was not over, however. I hammered through the last turns and eventually found myself in sight of the finish chute. I picked up a little speed as I tumbled through the narrow alley toward the finish, and smiled when I heard my parents and friends shouting for me from the side. And then, with one innocuous little step, somehow so different from the one before, it was done. 4:08:23. A 9:29 pace.\nAfter that, my only thoughts were, when can I sit down? And, when can I sleep? I got some hot soup and stayed on my legs for a while longer, though, as we waited for Jessica, and cheered her as she came across the finish, mastering her own marathon monster.\nIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t until we had gone back to the hotel, packed up, checked out, and driven back to San Francisco that I was really able to reflect on the race. You can probably believe that the neat way I\u0026rsquo;ve described my feelings and choices during the race doesn\u0026rsquo;t accurately depict my thoughts when they happened. It was only really in sorting through things shortly afterward that I realized what it was exactly that I accomplished. That moment of choosing to persevere, even though I had every excuse not to, was an important step for me. It was important, I think, in two ways. First, it was important for my personal growth. I have sometimes had a habit of quitting, leaving, or otherwise expressing displeasure or poor sports attitudes when things look like they\u0026rsquo;re not going to go the way I want. Not today. Secondly, and more importantly, today\u0026rsquo;s race helped me understand a tiny bit of what it means to suffer. Granted, it was an artificial environment, and I could have ended my suffering at any point, but what if things were different? What if I couldn\u0026rsquo;t just \u0026lsquo;quit\u0026rsquo;? I\u0026rsquo;d like to know that I have the ability to persevere, and this marathon will help in giving me that confidence.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s thoughts like these that turn my wondering back to God. God certainly didn\u0026rsquo;t answer any of my initial prayers. My prayers were based on my desires, for good weather, healing, and fast times. I didn\u0026rsquo;t get any of those. But apparently, I did come to one or two significant life realizations that will likely reverberate throughout my personal growth and maturation experience for a long time to come. If you ask me which God would probably care more about - positive experiences on one hand and authentic growth through hardship on the other - it seems that I\u0026rsquo;d have to say the latter. And here we come back to our discussion about attributing to God the finding of the lost keys: if there\u0026rsquo;s anything that I do want to attribute to God, it\u0026rsquo;s his tendency to put people in situations where they are forced to choose how to grow. A lot of pain in this world is senseless and a lot of evil is hard (or impossible for us) to explain on a theistic worldview, and I\u0026rsquo;m not trying to enter that discussion. What I am trying to say is that maybe we should look for God\u0026rsquo;s hand, not primarily or only in pleasant experiences (though it is there as well, no doubt at all), but in the \u0026lsquo;momentary\u0026rsquo; pains that cause redemptive growth in human beings and in nature.\nFirst marathons, at any rate, seem to be great ways of coming into contact with those \u0026lsquo;momentary\u0026rsquo; pains (though I promise they feel like eternal pains). At least, that\u0026rsquo;s what mine was for me.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2009/03/marathon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Me recovering hungrily\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e Today I ran my first marathon, and I wanted to write about it - not because it was a fast marathon or one that, from a running time perspective, I am proud of. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t and I\u0026rsquo;m not. But I think today\u0026rsquo;s marathon taught me a lot about life and spirituality, and allowed me to express both humility and my own form of personal heroism in a way that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t before. The marathon taught me these things, of course, in a way that only a 26.2-mile slog can. What follows is a race report, but also my reflections on the process that led me to the finish line in a (relatively to my training) unremarkable 4 hours and 8 minutes. Warning: this will be long, but (I hope) worth the read. And I haven\u0026rsquo;t written anything since December so you readers ought to indulge me. Warning 2: Profanities will probably be involved. They go hand-in-hand with marathons.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Marathon"},{"content":"In previous years, Splendour Hyaline (the band consisting of my brother and myself) has enjoyed recording some music for the Christmas holidays. Now that we are past Thanksgiving, David and I decided to produce a few songs to add to the collection. The album is called The Holly and the Ivy, and has just two tracks (can you guess what one of them is?) which are available for download below. I\u0026rsquo;m also including for download all our previous Christmas songs, from the albums we recorded in 2006 and 2007: Christmas and Holy Night, respectively. Enjoy this Christmas gift from us, and please feel free to share these songs with your friends and family! (Also, be sure to check out Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s new Backlight.org profile).\nTo download, right-click the links and choose \u0026ldquo;Save Target As\u0026rdquo; (or your browser\u0026rsquo;s equivalent).\nThe Holly and the Ivy (2008) The Holly and the Ivy Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Holy Night (2006) We Three Kings of Orient Are Hark! The Herald Angels Sing O Holy Night Christmas (2005) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen O Little Town of Bethlehem It Came Upon a Midnight Clear CREDITS: Songs arranged and performed by Jonathan and David Lipps Produced, recorded and engineered by David Lipps at Spareroom Studios Cover art by Chris Nyffeler (except \u0026ldquo;Holy Night\u0026rdquo; by Jonathan Lipps)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/12/the-holly-and-the-ivy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn previous years, Splendour Hyaline (the band consisting of my brother and myself) has enjoyed recording some music for the Christmas holidays. Now that we are \u003ca href=\"/2008/11/holiday-marketing-is-upon-us/\"\u003epast Thanksgiving\u003c/a\u003e, David and I decided to produce a few songs to add to the collection. The album is called \u003cem\u003eThe Holly and the Ivy\u003c/em\u003e, and has just two tracks (can you guess what one of them is?) which are available for download below. I\u0026rsquo;m also including for download all our previous Christmas songs, from the albums we recorded in 2006 and 2007: \u003cem\u003eChristmas\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eHoly Night\u003c/em\u003e, respectively. Enjoy this Christmas gift from us, and please feel free to share these songs with your friends and family! (Also, be sure to check out Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s new \u003ca href=\"http://splendourhyaline.backlight.org\"\u003eBacklight.org profile\u003c/a\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Holly and the Ivy"},{"content":" It\u0026rsquo;s been a while since I wrote. Lots of things have happened. Work on Backlight continues. My personal life unravels. I take the GRE. I start applying to grad school again. I begin marathon training. I read many insightful things by many insightful people (and neglect to share). I ruminate about issues surrounding Election Day (war, abortion, gay marriage, the economy, and others). I vote. Barack Obama is elected president, and I breathe a sigh of relief along with the rest of the world.\nI could have written reams about any and all of the above, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t. Instead, I come to you now with dire and horrifying news: The Christmas marketing season is upon us! And it will prevail. Unless we act soon. Last Saturday (November 1 \u0026ndash; that\u0026rsquo;s November first), I was walking through San Francisco\u0026rsquo;s Embarcadero Center on the way to my running route. Being the day after Halloween, large poofy spiders and various orange-and-black things were scattered sadly around the shops. So far, so good \u0026ndash; the emotionally awkward day-after detritus is a necessary evil that comes along with any holiday. But what did I hear piping through the mall\u0026rsquo;s music system? Silver Bells, that smooth and comfortable memory of listening to Bing Crosby as a child in the living room lit by a fire and colorful tree lights. Inconceivable. Impossible. Unacceptable. My mind quickly drew up its defenses and stood against the inappropriate Christmas emotions that had been involuntarily triggered by the song. Was I fast enough? Did I preserve holiday feelings for the holiday itself? Or am I now doomed to experience Christmas burnout? I don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nMy argument against the Holiday Marketing Season is simple: it\u0026rsquo;s too damned long. Don\u0026rsquo;t get me wrong, Christmas (and I\u0026rsquo;m talking about the secular, egg-nog-trees-and-lights holiday here, not the Christian celebration \u0026ndash; I enjoy that for different reasons) has always been my favorite holiday, and in some impossible perfect world, it would be Christmas all year long. But the sad fact of human psychology is that there is a finite amount of enjoyment we can squeeze from any particular holiday, and there is generally an inverse relationship between the quality and quantity of that enjoyment. I understand the anxious greed of retailers that causes them to attempt to turn every last drop of holiday cheer into cash, and I appreciate the economic stimulation for our country that is often a result. We know from the law of diminishing returns, however, that true enjoyment is an art which requires a delicate balance of anticipation, satisfaction, and moderation. The message of marketers that we can live in the \u0026ldquo;satisfaction\u0026rdquo; phase of the enjoyment of the Christmas season for almost 2 months is simply false, and serves to counteract the quality of our enjoyment by turning us into holiday-themed consumption zombies.\nSo, how should things be? My desire is not for the complete elimination of Christmas-themed marketing (though there are often reasons to be depressed by it and to dislike it). In fact, holiday marketing can play an important part of the \u0026ldquo;anticipation\u0026rdquo; phase of enjoying Christmas. Towns and stores decorating themselves, seasonal drinks at Starbucks, the abounding of festive colors and the promise of upcoming time off of work spent with family and friends \u0026ndash; all of these are fine things (especially peppermint ice cream and egg nog). What I don\u0026rsquo;t appreciate is the triggering of anticipation for or the actual satisfaction of Christmas enjoyment desires at inappropriate times. What is an appropriate time? After Thanksgiving (Oh yeah, isn\u0026rsquo;t that a holiday too?). The period of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the ideal span to contain the entirety of the \u0026ldquo;Christmas season\u0026rdquo;. Christmas trees are put up, buildings decorated, the traditional carols left free to float through the air\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s wonderful! Deserving of the name \u0026ldquo;festival\u0026rdquo; rather than \u0026ldquo;slog\u0026rdquo;.\nI beg you, therefore, to do what I\u0026rsquo;m going to do: completely ignore any and all holiday marketing until after Thanksgiving (unless, of course, it is about turkeys or tofurkeys or pumpkin pies or \u0026ldquo;Fall\u0026rdquo; or cornucopias or Beaujolais Nouveau). Don\u0026rsquo;t buy egg nog until December. Don\u0026rsquo;t play Christmas music. Boycott Santa hats. Wait to put lights on your house. Do this, and you will become true connoisseurs of the Christmas season, realizing that maximum enjoyment is found in the ordering of anticipation and the limiting of satisfaction!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/11/holiday-marketing-is-upon-us/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e It\u0026rsquo;s been a while since I wrote. Lots of things have happened. Work on \u003ca href=\"http://www.backlight.org\"\u003eBacklight\u003c/a\u003e continues. My personal life unravels. I take the GRE. I start applying to grad school again. I begin marathon training. I read many insightful things by many insightful people (and neglect to share). I ruminate about issues surrounding Election Day (war, abortion, gay marriage, the economy, and others). I vote. Barack Obama is elected president, and I breathe a sigh of relief along with the rest of the world.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Holiday Marketing is Upon Us!"},{"content":" A few years ago, I wrote a post detailing my personal gaming history, wherein I also looked ahead to the future at a computer game that was shaping up to be extremely interesting. That game was Spore (you should really go to their site and watch the introductory video). Under development for half a decade, it was finally released a little over a week ago. Of course, I went out and bought it immediately, and have spent way too much time enjoying it recently.\nBasically, Spore delivers. From the purely creative elements involved in putting together your very own creatures, vehicles, buildings, or spaceships, to the very strategic ones involved in maintaining a galactic empire in a quest for the Ultimate Answer, to the delight and wonder that spark the imagination upon seeing a coherent, procedurally-generated universe, replete with stars and supernovae and black holes and UFOs and alien creatures and planets and\u0026hellip; the list goes on.\nI have to admit that there was some initial disappointment with the depth of gameplay at earlier levels (Spore is divided into Cell, Creature, Tribal, Civilization, and Space stages). The first three stages in particular felt too easy, and went by very quickly without much in the way of challenge. Once I hit the Space stage, however, all that changed. It seemed everything I\u0026rsquo;d learned about using Spore in the earlier stages was now a set of essential skills I needed to use with strategy and alacrity if I was to stay on the board. It took me probably 6 hours to get from the Cell stage to the Space stage, and I\u0026rsquo;ve spent at least that long in this last stage, without progressing that much closer to the center of the galaxy (which is the goal of Spore). Part of my challenge at the Space stage may be due to choices I made in earlier stages, though - I chose to be a very warlike civilization, which gave me certain benefits, but also made it much more likely that I would be attacked in the Space stage.\nWell, there\u0026rsquo;s much more to say about a game that has innovated so greatly on technical and conceptual levels, but that\u0026rsquo;s all for now. You should check out the game yourself! It should run on any computer (Windows or Mac) with a decent graphics card. I\u0026rsquo;ll leave you with a set of creations from my current Spore game. Clearly, only a very special game could allow me to create such cool and unique models! And, if you\u0026rsquo;re a Spore player yourself, I believe you can download these images and import them directly into Spore to use them in your own games.\nTyraxin, my creature for this game (from planet Teraxius)\nThe city hall for the Civilization stage on Teraxius\nThe ground vehicle for the Tyraxin\nThe Tyraxin air vehicle\nMy spaceship!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/09/spore/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Steggy, my first Spore creation\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e A few years ago, I wrote a \u003ca href=\"/2006/03/inspiration-from-game-design/\"\u003epost detailing my personal gaming history\u003c/a\u003e, wherein I also looked ahead to the future at a computer game that was shaping up to be extremely interesting. That game was \u003ca href=\"http://www.spore.com\"\u003eSpore\u003c/a\u003e (you should really go to their site and watch the introductory video). Under development for half a decade, it was finally released a little over a week ago. Of course, I went out and bought it immediately, and have spent way too much time enjoying it recently.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Spore"},{"content":"Blog silence has reigned for the last month, largely due to my traveling in Europe and wanting, understandably, to minimize computer time. I spent most of my time in Germany living with my sister Rachel in a tiny town in Bavaria called Edelsfeld, where she is living with her husband while he works for the US Army. He is currently on deployment, so it was good to spend some time with her!\nI also had the opportunity to travel with my girlfriend Jessica on the weekends, as she was spending a few months in northern Germany working this summer. We spent a weekend in her town, Celle, then joined my sister and good friends Trent and Natalie in Munich, then finally had a wonderful time visiting Barcelona.\nObviously there would be numerous things to write about, from stories to observations of interesting cultural differences to reflections I had during the last weeks, but alas! There is no time. So instead, I\u0026rsquo;ll just post links to the photo albums I\u0026rsquo;ve added to my Flickr account. Enjoy!\nGermany Photo Set\nBarcelona Photo Set\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/08/germany-and-barcelona/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBlog silence has reigned for the last month, largely due to my traveling in Europe and wanting, understandably, to minimize computer time. I spent most of my time in Germany living with \u003ca href=\"http://rachelmelone.blogspot.com/\"\u003emy sister Rachel\u003c/a\u003e in a tiny town in Bavaria called Edelsfeld, where she is living with her husband while he works for the US Army. He is currently on deployment, so it was good to spend some time with her!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Germany and Barcelona"},{"content":"\nLast week, I saw The Dark Knight. It was incredible, easily the best movie I\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the last year and probably in my Top 10 overall. It had a wonderful balance of action, good writing, amazing acting, thoughtful plot, and provocative questions. The questions it raises (and answers?) are, as you would expect from a good Batman movie, all about justice and violence and how much of the latter is permitted in search of the former.\nA few months ago, that would have been all I perceived in the film. Recently, however, I\u0026rsquo;ve been going through René Girard\u0026rsquo;s I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, since I\u0026rsquo;d wanted to get a taste of his thought through one of his books rather than from a secondary source like Walter Wink. Anyway, I was nearly done with the book when I saw The Dark Knight, and was surprised when I saw the film explode with new meaning for me, unlocked by Girard\u0026rsquo;s concepts! I thought a brief exposition of the connections could be illuminating (and maybe inspire someone to read Girard, whom I now believe to be one of the most important thinkers of our time).\nAttempting a one-paragraph introduction to Girard\u0026rsquo;s theses is silly, but here we go: his main idea is that there is a hidden principle that ties together all of human society, which stems from the fact that as creatures we are prone to mimetic desire, that is, we are prone to mimicking others\u0026rsquo; desires, or desiring what others have. This naturally creates ever-building conflicts (which he calls scandals), and these scandals mount and mount until a moment when there is so much intrasocietal tension that people come to the verge of the \u0026ldquo;war of all-against-all\u0026rdquo;, since the only logical conclusion of \u0026ldquo;mimetic rivalry\u0026rdquo; is murder. In order to prevent such a catastrophic degradation into pure bestiality and to restore order, Girard thinks these tensions and energies are collectively focused in a spontaneous and unanimous redirection to a swift and violent \u0026ldquo;war of all-against-one\u0026rdquo;. This \u0026ldquo;one\u0026rdquo; is referred to as the scapegoat, initially demonized then subsequently divinized for his \u0026ldquo;ability\u0026rdquo; (through sacrifice) to bring calm to the community. This whole process, Girard says, is ritualized and then mythologized in such a way that the actual violent mechanism (the \u0026ldquo;single victim mechanism\u0026rdquo;) is veiled and invisible to the contemporary participants then the later receivers of the mythological tradition. In other words, the citizens who pick up the stones actually believe that the one they are about to murder, even though a moment ago he was one of the crowd, is now worthy of death.\nGirard goes on to base some astonishingly profound claims on top of this foundation, which are worth exploring further if you have the time to read his work. He also supports his powerful anthropological claim in a way that I clearly don\u0026rsquo;t have the space to outline here - it truly is amazing when he examines the myths of the ancient world and compares them to the stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition (which he thinks is the only tradition to see and expose the single victim mechanism for what it is - a second-rate and temporary solution to the main problem of human existence). Of particular interest for Christians, he unlocks a new and compelling way of reading Jesus\u0026rsquo; words and the history of early Christianity radically nonviolently, particularly the Crucifixion. (Girard loves treating Jesus\u0026rsquo; willing death, not so much a \u0026ldquo;blood sacrifice\u0026rdquo; in the sense as all the other ritual sacrifices which mask the single victim mechanism, but as an action that looks enough like it to dupe the \u0026ldquo;principalities and powers\u0026rdquo; into triggering the mechanism, only for it to backfire via the Resurrection and Jesus\u0026rsquo; powerful exposition of their hidden secret for maintaining power). Finally, Girard thinks that in our modern society, thanks to the insights of Christianity, we tend to be characterized by \u0026ldquo;concern for victims\u0026rdquo; rather than a subconscious willingness to sacrifice them.\nObviously, a lot more could be said, but sooner or later we have to get to The Dark Knight. In the movie, Batman is wrestling with some essentially Girardian questions (common to superheroes, it seems). He sees the fundamental problem of society (Gotham) clearly - disorder, violence, and inaction, and attempts to counter these problems with his own brand of nonlethal (rather than lethal or nonviolent) crime-fighting. He soon discovers, unfortunately, that his actions only heighten the tension and spawn nemeses of greater caliber. This corresponds, I\u0026rsquo;d say, to Girard\u0026rsquo;s description of the multiplication of scandals and the move to a breaking point.\nThe breaking point comes in the form of the Joker, a mysterious individual who describes himself primarily as an agent of chaos, which is extremely interesting in a Girardian sense given that \u0026ldquo;chaos\u0026rdquo; is exactly what the single victim mechanism evolved to counter - so already we can imagine that perhaps one of the Joker\u0026rsquo;s roles in the film will be to instigate this societal mechanism. In fact, he does this on a number of occasions! His favorite games all seem to involve forcing supposedly-upright citizens into situations where it looks like sacrificing one (or a few) of their number will bring calm and restore order (the call to murder the Wayne Enterprises employee about to reveal the identity of Batman, the ferry dilemma, his speech to Harvey Dent, etc\u0026hellip;). In other words, he is inviting the triggering of the single victim mechanism, even explicitly, as a way for Gotham to regain peace. But tellingly, this \u0026ldquo;peace\u0026rdquo; is only temporary - the next day, the Joker will be back with another escalation of tension and another demand. This is exactly how Girard describes the single victim mechanism - a violent and temporary reduction of societal tension.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s also interesting to examine the Joker in the light of Girard\u0026rsquo;s thoughts about Satan as the principle (rather than the \u0026ldquo;person\u0026rdquo; - Girard doesn\u0026rsquo;t want to award Satan with real existence-in-himself) behind mimetic violence (the violence generated by mimetic desire and resulting in the single victim mechanism). Girard sees Satan as maintaining power precisely through the operation of this mechanism (as the Joker does).\nAnother of the themes in the movie is Batman\u0026rsquo;s wrestling with the Joker\u0026rsquo;s argument that they are basically the same. Nemeses, true, but both costume-wearing crazies: one out to promote order and the other to destroy it. It seems that the Joker\u0026rsquo;s argument is really intended as a temptation for Batman to give in and use the same tools as his enemy (using lethal rather than nonlethal force). Girard\u0026rsquo;s theory speaks to this situation as well, when he talks about \u0026ldquo;mimetic rivalry\u0026rdquo;. Two people who desire the same thing eventually become hard-and-fast rivals - that much is pretty obvious. But he also explains that two rivals, supposedly different in every sense, through their intense rivalry generate a fundamental likeness as they are consumed by their rage against each other and eventually become beings with one main characteristic: the desire to defeat the other. And so the Joker invites Batman to succumb to this cycle, to descend into the facelessness of mimetic rivalry where the combatants have more in common with each other (via their combat) than not.\nIn all of this, Batman has to make decisions about whether to play the game offered by the Joker (and indeed, it seems the only option), or whether to reject the Joker\u0026rsquo;s starting assumptions. These questions are put not just to him, but to all the people of Gotham, especially in the ferry trial. The options: order at the cost of other people\u0026rsquo;s lives, or pure chaos (everybody dies). It seems sadly obvious to us, the viewers, that the former option is better than the latter. But Batman (and the people on the boats) decide to believe in a third option - the path of nonviolence and the willingness to be sacrificed. Of course, that path doesn\u0026rsquo;t always lead to a happy ending - though it did in the movie because of Batman\u0026rsquo;s skill in trapping the Joker.\nBut how does that help us? What if we were in the same situation, except without a Batman to perform our miracles? This is where faith in God is put to the test (or rather, where faith in God puts him to the test), and we find out what Jesus (and so many other innocent victims) felt like before being torn apart by the mob\u0026hellip; But perhaps I should leave that an open question!\nWell, I hope I\u0026rsquo;ve made it clear that there are some cool resonances between The Dark Knight and Girard\u0026rsquo;s theories. I haven\u0026rsquo;t done any research or exploration to see if the writers / director of the movie have read Girard or intentionally used any of his ideas in making the movie. Either way, The Dark Knight stands as a powerful representation of these important themes, and asks us to confront within ourselves questions about violence, scapegoating, and sacrifice.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/the-dark-knight-and-rene-girard/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast week, I saw \u003ca href=\"http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/\"\u003eThe Dark Knight\u003c/a\u003e. It was incredible, easily the best movie I\u0026rsquo;ve seen in the last year and probably in my Top 10 overall. It had a wonderful balance of action, good writing, amazing acting, thoughtful plot, and provocative questions. The questions it raises (and answers?) are, as you would expect from a good Batman movie, all about justice and violence and how much of the latter is permitted in search of the former.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Dark Knight and René Girard"},{"content":" When the original iPhone was released a year ago, I wanted one. The promise of being constantly connected to all the various sockets of the Internet into which I have plugged myself (news, e-mail, chat, social networks, information gathering, etc\u0026hellip;) was seductive. Being able to work while not standing by a computer, or to keep tabs, in an up-to-the-second fashion, on my virtual communication stream - how exciting!\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t get an iPhone then because of my imminent move to Kenya (where it would have been a bad idea to flash one of those around, even if it functioned), but with the recent emergence of the iPhone 3G, I decided to take the plunge, and see if this device was as life-changing as it was cracked up to be. Turns out, it is! But I\u0026rsquo;m beginning to wonder at what cost.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s no secret that technology changes us. A few years ago I reflected on the iPod\u0026rsquo;s effects on culture, and earlier this month, Melissa raised similar questions, with respect to Google. I had an interesting experience today, however, which proved that these changes can insinuate themselves into deep parts of our cognition.\nI was walking down the street with some friends, looking for Los Hermanos, a great burrito place. I was in the general vicinity of it, I thought, but wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite sure of the cross street, and I was confused that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen the restaurant thus far on my walk. Well, I said to myself - that\u0026rsquo;s what I have an iPhone for! So I fired it up, Googled the restaurant, and had a street address in under a minute. 2026 Chestnut. \u0026ldquo;OK, what\u0026rsquo;s the address of this store here? 2016\u0026hellip; OK, that means that Los Hermanos should be\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; At which point, I looked up from my phone and noticed the large, brightly-colored sign hanging above the business not more than 15 feet from where I was standing. Yep, it was Los Hermanos.\nIt was very interesting to me that my first instinct, upon finding myself in a place where I expected to see one thing and saw another, thereby needing more locational information, was to use the Internet rather than my eyes. My eyes, having evolved to perform precisely the task I needed done (namely the gaining of local spatial knowledge) were passed over in favor of technology. Which meant, of course, that the more dangerous trade - my memory for Google - was implicit.\nBut why not trust to the skills that were bestowed upon us via our natural adaptations? Have we truly passed into an age where our environments are changing far more rapidly than our bodies can adapt? It certainly seems like it. But perhaps the more interesting question is, what will that do to our bodies? When we learned how to cook food our jaws decreased in size. When we learned how to wear clothes, we lost our hair (depending on your view of this adaptation). When we learned how to live in cities, we lost our natural keen sensitivities to natural phenomena. When we learned how to use dead plant matter to propel ourselves in metal canisters across the earth, many of us lost the proper functioning of our legs and other muscles. When we taught ourselves that interesting content can be delivered in the time span of a short video clip or a 3-minute radio single, we infected ourselves with A.D.D. while simultaneously dulling our senses to anything not flashing or brightly-colored.\n\u0026hellip; And I could go on.\nSo, what will happen when we learn how to never need to remember anything again? What will that do to our brains? What will it do to our ability to survive without our newfangled devices? (Imagine trying to survive these days without clothes, fire or tools!) What species will we become, with essential parts of our existence scattered around the world in metal boxes on fragile hard drives? No longer homo sapiens, the thinking human, but homo technologicus, the equipped human. And so we have to ask ourselves, do we want to evolve in this way? The benefits of ubiquitous and distributed memory are immense, but what are the costs? What will happen to our ability to spend time in Nature qua natural beings, qua creatures?\nMaybe that\u0026rsquo;s what we should be thinking about when buying our new iPhones (and yes, mine is very shiny) - but either way, it\u0026rsquo;s certainly not what is being advertised.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/the-iphone-era-technological-adaptation-and-the-future-of-human-evolution/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e When the original iPhone was released a year ago, I wanted one. The promise of being constantly connected to all the various sockets of the Internet into which I have plugged myself (news, e-mail, chat, social networks, information gathering, etc\u0026hellip;) was seductive. Being able to work while not standing by a computer, or to keep tabs, in an up-to-the-second fashion, on my virtual communication stream - how exciting!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI didn\u0026rsquo;t get an iPhone then because of my imminent move to Kenya (where it would have been a bad idea to flash one of those around, even if it functioned), but with the recent emergence of the iPhone 3G, I decided to take the plunge, and see if this device was as life-changing as it was cracked up to be. Turns out, it is! But I\u0026rsquo;m beginning to wonder at what cost.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The iPhone Era: Technological Adaptation and the Future of Human Evolution"},{"content":"A few days ago, my dad and I were able to put together the desk. Luckily, we have a small hardware store just 4 blocks away, so we were able to go get materials at the spur of the moment. Said materials turned out to be:\n(4) cuts of 3/4\u0026quot; plywood at 11 3/4\u0026quot; x 21\u0026quot; (perfectly cut by a store employee) (14) 1 3/4\u0026quot; wood screws (1) sheet of sandpaper To begin, we sanded clean the edges and any ugly stuff on the faces: Then, we pre-drilled the screw holes so that the later drilling would be easier and more aligned. We used 4 holes per side on the top, and 3 holes per side for the keyboard tray. And, as we had hoped, it was easy to drill some solid holes in an exact way. Here we are with one side left to go\u0026hellip; And we\u0026rsquo;re done! Here\u0026rsquo;s a shot of me on the inaugural run: And for good measure, a closeup from the worker\u0026rsquo;s perspective: That\u0026rsquo;s it! Now go build your own!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/stand-up-desk-part-ii-implementation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA few days ago, my dad and I were able to put together \u003ca href=\"/2008/07/stand-up-desk-part-i-design/\"\u003ethe desk\u003c/a\u003e. Luckily, we have a small hardware store just 4 blocks away, so we were able to go get materials at the spur of the moment. Said materials turned out to be:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e(4) cuts of 3/4\u0026quot; plywood at 11 3/4\u0026quot; x 21\u0026quot; (perfectly cut by a store employee)\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e(14) 1 3/4\u0026quot; wood screws\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e(1) sheet of sandpaper\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"deskbuilding supplies\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Stand-Up Desk, Part II: Implementation"},{"content":"Like many computer programmers who spend upwards of 8 hours a day working with a keyboard and mouse, I\u0026rsquo;ve developed some physical problems as a result (classed as Repetitive Strain Injuries, or RSIs). In recent years these have gotten so serious I\u0026rsquo;ve been to one physician (mainstream and alternative) after another, looking for insight into the situation. Through that process I\u0026rsquo;ve gained an awareness of the supreme importance of things like correct posture and taking recovery breaks. I\u0026rsquo;ve also experimented with every kind of ergonomic device on the market, some of which do help. (Unfortunately, much of this is too little, too late\u0026ndash;such is the price I pay for my unsustainable Internet lifestyle).\nWell, my most recent epiphany in this process is that we humans were not meant to be sitting creatures. Standing, walking, and reclining are naturally the more ergonomically normal postures for us. And so I (and my dad, whom I recruited to help with the project) decided to try and put together a stand-up desk to use during my 8 hours a day of bondage. I had the further idea that, if it could be dismantled and fit into my 21\u0026quot; x 11\u0026quot; x 10\u0026quot; suitcase, so much the better!\nSo, after taking measurements of my height and my ergonomically neutral hand and head positions, I put together this model in Google Sketchup:\nThe idea was to build the frame out of PVC for easy dis- and re-assembly, and to keep the weight down. However, after taking a trip to the hardware store and playing around with various materials, it became clear that (a) the desk would be pretty wobbly unless it were crisscrossed with PVC supports, (b) the massive number of PVC connectors we\u0026rsquo;d need would fill my suitcase all by themselves, and (c) construction would be very complex and difficult. So, back to the drawing board!\nApproaching the idea from a different perspective, that of the question \u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s the simplest possible way to construct a piece within the appropriate ergonomic constraints?\u0026rdquo;, proved very fruitful. Almost immediately we hit upon the idea of using just 4 pieces of wood to create a satisfactory design. Of course, what we gained in utter simplicity and the sturdiness of wood, we probably lost in overall lightness. Still, surprisingly, after looking at the new design, it appeared that it would be even more likely to fit in my suitcase than the previous version. In addition, it turned out that we could build this new design with 4 pieces of wood that were exactly the same size!\nThe only other downside to this design is that it requires a table to stand on. Of course, finding a table or desk of the appropriate height (about 30\u0026quot;) shouldn\u0026rsquo;t ever prove to be too difficult.\nSo, this is the design we\u0026rsquo;re taking to Home Depot with which to get materials. All in all, I thought it was an interesting process, in which my natural desires to build a complicated and unworkable design were ultimately won over by something a lot more simple and obvious, which will probably successfully meet my criteria for a desk. Stay tuned: I\u0026rsquo;ll post another blog with pictures when we attempt to actually turn this into reality!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/stand-up-desk-part-i-design/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLike many computer programmers who spend upwards of 8 hours a day working with a keyboard and mouse, I\u0026rsquo;ve developed some physical problems as a result (classed as \u003ca href=\"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t\u0026amp;ct=res\u0026amp;cd=1\u0026amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FRepetitive_strain_injury\u0026amp;ei=oIlzSLmeHZqkhASfyOHrAg\u0026amp;usg=AFQjCNHhf2X_EZsNeEm1bZy20_oj6l9gkQ\u0026amp;sig2=o7lsdK_0lD4Dp6Z0rdrJ-A\"\u003eRepetitive Strain Injuries\u003c/a\u003e, or RSIs). In recent years these have gotten so serious I\u0026rsquo;ve been to one physician (mainstream and alternative) after another, looking for insight into the situation. Through that process I\u0026rsquo;ve gained an awareness of the supreme importance of things like correct posture and taking recovery breaks. I\u0026rsquo;ve also experimented with every kind of ergonomic device on the market, some of which do help. (Unfortunately, much of this is too little, too late\u0026ndash;such is the price I pay for my unsustainable Internet lifestyle).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Stand-up Desk, Part I: Design"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s a new photoset up at my Flickr page with some shots from my recent travels with Jessica and others. She came to San Francisco for a week, then I was able to visit her family in Macomb, IL. We rounded things out with a trip to Omaha, NE to watch our friend Peter swim in the Olympic trials. Anyway, check out the photos\u0026hellip;\nSF, Macomb, Omaha 6-2008\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/photos-from-sf-macomb-and-omaha/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThere\u0026rsquo;s a new photoset up at \u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlipps\"\u003emy Flickr page\u003c/a\u003e with some shots from my recent travels with Jessica and others. She came to San Francisco for a week, then I was able to visit her family in Macomb, IL. We rounded things out with a trip to Omaha, NE to watch our friend Peter swim in the Olympic trials. Anyway, check out the photos\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlipps/sets/72157605994460914/\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3066/2640347364_789e8ee310_m.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlipps/sets/72157605994460914/\"\u003eSF, Macomb, Omaha 6-2008\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photos from SF, Macomb, and Omaha"},{"content":"I am very pleased to announce the arrival of the third installment of Summer of Rock, my annual summer music compilation. Summer of Rock \u0026lsquo;06 and \u0026lsquo;07 have been (I flatter myself to think) great successes, and I\u0026rsquo;m hoping this year will continue the trend.\nAs we all know, summer is a time for making memories, and nothing goes with memories like good music. From the high-energy, sunny days to the lazy, reflective and romantic nights, this compilation will be the perfect soundtrack to your summer adventures. I\u0026rsquo;m showcasing primarily songs that have been released in the past year, though there are a handful of older favorites.\nTwo songs in particular deserve special mention. \u0026ldquo;Ndikumaka\u0026rdquo; was recorded by a Tumaini kid (Rosemary) and myself while in Kenya, and is a wonderful example of the talent latent in those kids. \u0026ldquo;Hello\u0026rdquo; is a new Splendour Hyaline song (Splendour Hyaline is the band name for the songs David and I write and record). Be warned: it\u0026rsquo;s a non-final mix of a song from an album we are recording this summer, so stay tuned for the album\u0026rsquo;s release to hear the final version. (Both the Tumaini album and the Splendour Hyaline album will be available for download later this summer).\nHere is the playlist (you can download the songs immediately below it):\nLet It Ride, by Ryan Adams (from \u0026ldquo;Cold Roses (Disc 2)\u0026rdquo;) No Sunlight, by Death Cab for Cutie (from \u0026ldquo;Narrow Stairs\u0026rdquo;) Viva La Vida, by Coldplay (from \u0026ldquo;Viva La Vida\u0026rdquo;) Skinny Love, by Bon Iver (from \u0026ldquo;For Emma, Forever Ago\u0026rdquo;) Coconut Skins, by Damien Rice (from \u0026ldquo;9\u0026rdquo;) Killing for Love, by José González (from \u0026ldquo;In Our Nature\u0026rdquo;) Apartment Story, by The National (from \u0026ldquo;Boxer\u0026rdquo;) Lovesong Of The Buzzard, by Iron and Wine (from \u0026ldquo;The Shepherd\u0026rsquo;s Dog\u0026rdquo;) Not California, by Hem (from \u0026ldquo;Funnel Cloud\u0026rdquo;) Come Out Of The Shade, by The Perishers (from \u0026ldquo;Victorious\u0026rdquo;) Baby, It\u0026rsquo;s Fact, by Hellogoodbye (from \u0026ldquo;Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!\u0026rdquo;) Ndikumaka, by Tumaini (from \u0026ldquo;Songs of Hope (Pre-Release)\u0026rdquo;) Here It Goes, by Jimmy Eat World (from \u0026ldquo;Chase This Light\u0026rdquo;) The Modern Leper, by Frightened Rabbit (from \u0026ldquo;The Midnight Organ Fight\u0026rdquo;) Not What You Wanted, by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (from \u0026ldquo;Baby 81\u0026rdquo;) Lake Michigan, by Rogue Wave (from \u0026ldquo;Asleep At Heaven\u0026rsquo;s Gate\u0026rdquo;) Hoppipolla, by Sigur Rós (from \u0026ldquo;Takk\u0026rdquo;) Leap Year, by +/- (from \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s Build A Fire\u0026rdquo;) Hello, by Splendour Hyaline (from \u0026ldquo;When Love Leaves Its Hiding Place EP (Demo)\u0026rdquo;) Why You, by Joe Purdy (from \u0026ldquo;Only Four Seasons\u0026rdquo;) Dash, by DeYarmond Edison (from \u0026ldquo;Silent Signs\u0026rdquo;) Download and setup instructions (sorry, but you will need iTunes):\nDownload the zip file here: Summer of Rock 2008 Unzip the files to your desktop or some other location (this will create a folder called Summer of Rock 2008). Drag the folder into your iTunes software (typically, dragging it onto the \u0026ldquo;Music\u0026rdquo; label underneath \u0026ldquo;LIBRARY\u0026rdquo; is the safest way to do this \u0026ndash; you\u0026rsquo;ll see a \u0026ldquo;+\u0026rdquo; sign before you know it\u0026rsquo;s OK to release the mouse button). This should copy the song files to your iTunes library. Finally, in iTunes, go to File \u0026gt; Import. In the file browser, navigate to the Summer of Rock 2008 folder, and select the file \u0026ldquo;Summer of Rock 2008.xml\u0026rdquo;. Importing this playlist file will create the playlist \u0026ldquo;Summer of Rock 2008\u0026rdquo; in your iTunes library, which you can use to play the songs in the intended order! Now, you can safely delete the \u0026ldquo;Summer of Rock 2008\u0026rdquo; folder and the zip file, as the song files should be safely organized by iTunes. Unfortunately, doing things this way has its drawbacks as well as its benefits. The primary benefit is increased song quality. One of the drawbacks is that, in my version of the playlist, I have opted to cause some songs to end earlier than their actual finish time, to make the compilation flow better (for example, Lovesong of the Buzzard takes way too long to finish, and I modified its options in iTunes to end at 3:52). It will be up to you to do this if you want! It will also be up to you to burn a CD from this playlist to take in your car or wherever.\nAs always, the point of this compilation is to introduce you to new music and encourage you to buy songs and merchandise from the artists you like, through legal channels. If you are not open to supporting the artists financially, please don\u0026rsquo;t take advantage of my offering these songs for download!\nThanks, and enjoy! I look forward to hearing any comments. If the playlist or song files change, I will post a notification in this entry.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/summer-of-rock-2008/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg alt=\"Summer of Rock 2008\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"/images/image-not-found.svg\"\u003eI am very pleased to announce the arrival of the third installment of Summer of Rock, my annual summer music compilation. Summer of Rock \u0026lsquo;06 and \u0026lsquo;07 have been (I flatter myself to think) great successes, and I\u0026rsquo;m hoping this year will continue the trend.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs we all know, summer is a time for making memories, and nothing goes with memories like good music. From the high-energy, sunny days to the lazy, reflective and romantic nights, this compilation will be the perfect soundtrack to your summer adventures. I\u0026rsquo;m showcasing primarily songs that have been released in the past year, though there are a handful of older favorites.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Summer of Rock 2008"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been awhile since I\u0026rsquo;ve attempted blogging. From Blogger to Movable Type to Teleios and finally to WordPress, I\u0026rsquo;ve done my fair share of writing and pointing at things on the internet. I decided that I miss it, and so here we go again.\nI\u0026rsquo;m giving this blog the same name as my Teleios e4:online blog, because I really like it. For me, re-creation, or creating in response to the universal creative process God has instituted around us, is at the core of our purpose and therefore our identity as human beings. It\u0026rsquo;s amusing that the word \u0026ldquo;recreation\u0026rdquo; has come to mean something so seemingly superfluous as \u0026ldquo;arbitrary leisure activities\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;but my goal is not to imbue that word with seriousness. Rather, a lighthearted, creative playfulness should characterize our attempts at integrating the various things we find about ourselves in this massive universe into our identities.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;m attempting to do here, through thoughts, stories, or sharing random things that have piqued my interest or are just plain funny.\nSo, Welcome! Please feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed to follow this blog in the reader of your choice.\nPS I\u0026rsquo;ve taken the liberty of importing all my blog posts in the past 6 years from various sources\u0026ndash;my college Blogger blog, my MovableType setup, the short-lived Butwedigress.net, the Teleios experiment, and finally the \u0026ldquo;Hello! Fine.\u0026rdquo; blog I kept with some friends while volunteering in Kenya. They\u0026rsquo;re all mixed in together, but provide an interesting retrospective nonetheless. Don\u0026rsquo;t go back too far though\u0026ndash;there\u0026rsquo;s some embarrassing writing lurking back there in the nooks and crannies of time.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/07/recreation-20/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been awhile since I\u0026rsquo;ve attempted blogging. From Blogger to Movable Type to Teleios and finally to WordPress, I\u0026rsquo;ve done my fair share of writing and pointing at things on the internet. I decided that I miss it, and so here we go again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m giving this blog the same name as \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/\"\u003emy Teleios e4:online blog\u003c/a\u003e, because I really like it. For me, re-creation, or creating in response to the universal creative process God has instituted around us, is at the core of our purpose and therefore our identity as human beings. It\u0026rsquo;s amusing that the word \u0026ldquo;recreation\u0026rdquo; has come to mean something so seemingly superfluous as \u0026ldquo;arbitrary leisure activities\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;but my goal is not to imbue that word with seriousness. Rather, a lighthearted, creative playfulness should characterize our attempts at integrating the various things we find about ourselves in this massive universe into our identities.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Re:Creation 2.0"},{"content":"You\u0026rsquo;ve found yourself on the about page for this blog. If you\u0026rsquo;re looking for more information about me (Jonathan Lipps), you should head back to my main site:\njlipps.com But on the assumption that you\u0026rsquo;re interested in the origins of this blog, here\u0026rsquo;s a few words!\nI first started blogging when the concept was a relatively new one, back in early 2002. At that time, I was using Blogger, and my entries were very bad (you can go back and view them on this site\u0026rsquo;s archive page if you want to see what I mean, since I\u0026rsquo;ve imported all my previous blogs\u0026rsquo; entries into this one). Eventually I got my own hosting and set up a Movable Type site, with a layout of my own devising. That lasted until mid-2005, when I switched over to the blogging system I\u0026rsquo;d created from scratch for the social learning network I was developing (Teleios e4). I wrote there until Fall of 2007, when a 4+month trip to Kenya with friends meant that I was blogging at our group site (Hello! Fine.) Those entries are also imported here, though I did not import entries written by my fellow volunteers.\nAfter that, life caught up with me and my habit of posting reflections or links kind of died out. Well, that time is past, and I\u0026rsquo;m back! We\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can keep it up.\nWhy \u0026ldquo;Re:Creation\u0026rdquo;? Read this post and find out!\nCheers!\nJonathan Lipps, July 03, 2008\nPS The header photo was taken by me during a game of Take Two.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/about/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eYou\u0026rsquo;ve found yourself on the about page for this blog. If you\u0026rsquo;re looking for more information about me (Jonathan Lipps), you should head back to my main site:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jlipps.com/\"\u003ejlipps.com\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut on the assumption that you\u0026rsquo;re interested in the origins of this blog, here\u0026rsquo;s a few words!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI first started blogging when the concept was a relatively new one, back in early 2002. At that time, I was using Blogger, and my entries were very bad (you can go back and view them on this site\u0026rsquo;s archive page if you want to see what I mean, since I\u0026rsquo;ve imported all my previous blogs\u0026rsquo; entries into this one). Eventually I got my own hosting and set up a Movable Type site, with a layout of my own devising. That lasted until mid-2005, when I switched over to the blogging system I\u0026rsquo;d created from scratch for the social learning network I was developing (\u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us\"\u003eTeleios e4\u003c/a\u003e). I wrote there until Fall of 2007, when a 4+month trip to Kenya with friends meant that I was blogging at our group site (\u003ca href=\"http://hellofine.blogspot.com\"\u003eHello! Fine.\u003c/a\u003e) Those entries are also imported here, though I did not import entries written by my fellow volunteers.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"About"},{"content":"The time has come for me to leave Kenya. It\u0026rsquo;s ahead of my scheduled April departure, since I\u0026rsquo;m now needed back in the States for my sister\u0026rsquo;s upcoming wedding. Because of the suddenness, I haven\u0026rsquo;t had time yet to really appreciate what leaving means, and as I\u0026rsquo;ve begun saying goodbyes to those students who will be at school tomorrow when I leave, I\u0026rsquo;m awash with emotion. During the six months out of the last year (however non-consecutively) that I\u0026rsquo;ve spent living with the kids here, my average attitude towards them was probably some mixture of exasperation and bewilderment. The endless knocks on the door, the sly maneuvering to wheedle any variety of things from us, the interminable and insufferable church services\u0026hellip; I suppose that complaining about such things internally has masked the more gradual and quieter growth of what, I notice with surprise, can only be called love! I never thought I\u0026rsquo;d struggle to fight back tears when saying goodnight to an 8-year-old, or that a poorly-spelled note slipped under the door, insisting that \u0026ldquo;sualy we will miss you very much,\u0026rdquo; could drop me into a similar tailspin.\nI guess the last few weeks here have been too busy for me to notice such things\u0026ndash;a recording project I started with some of the songwriters here has blossomed into something greater than expected, and accordingly ate up most of my waking moments\u0026ndash;but that topic deserves its own post (I\u0026rsquo;ll supply it when I\u0026rsquo;m back in Terra Ignomino). Then there were the two final events of our House Competitions (you know, the ones between Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris), which had to be bumped up to accommodate my early absence\u0026ndash;this weekend\u0026rsquo;s grand finale was an awesome headache of uncoordinated mayhem! Finally, as we\u0026rsquo;re nearing Marathon Day (less than a week away), we\u0026rsquo;ve been hitting the dirt and loading up on running mileage. Yesterday morning\u0026rsquo;s long run was 26km, with about 2300 feet of elevation gain. On Friday, as many of the race-ready kids as we can fit into a van will be heading to Moshi, Tanzania for the Kilimanjaro marathon. Since I\u0026rsquo;ll be back in California on that day, I\u0026rsquo;ll be running the Napa Valley race instead\u0026ndash;which will be an easy, downhill, cakewalk of a marathon in comparison.\nI did have a strange moment on Saturday, when we took all of Tumaini to the nearby Ruring\u0026rsquo;u stadium. It has the distinction of being the place where many of the Kenyan refugees in this region are camping out. It also has a track (which is why we wanted to be there). Thirdly, it is close to Huruma, Tumaini\u0026rsquo;s sister orphanage. When we went to Huruma for lunch in the middle of our track and field competitions, and as I watched some of the younger Tumaini kids greet with wide-eyed astonishment a swing-set and a slide for the first time, I was struck by the dream-like sensation that these were my kids encountering something new. And when little Faith and Gladys tentatively started playing (in that wordless though infinitely nuanced fashion children have) with some of the Hurumans, I felt my breath catch as I waited to see if they would get along and play nice. Perhaps most unsettling to my young, all-too-bachelor self was the sense of responsibility I experienced in it all. If Faith had fallen off the slide, or if Gladys had sucker-punched a Huruman (which she might very well have done), I know I would have been involved in an instant. Does this mean I will be a good parent? No. But maybe it means I won\u0026rsquo;t be a horrible one!\nIn one way or another, it\u0026rsquo;s thoughts like these that come into my head now that I\u0026rsquo;m about to leave. I\u0026rsquo;m already missing the dusty red of the walk to town, the brilliant gleam of the high-angle equatorial sun on the plants in the shamba in the mornings, and the exhilaration of cresting a tortuous hill on a long run and being greeted by the overpowering sight of Mt Kenya\u0026rsquo;s majestic cone and its three glacier-covered peaks. But the withdrawal pains will come most strongly with memories of faces\u0026ndash;from Rhoda\u0026rsquo;s crazed hilarity to Mary\u0026rsquo;s doe-eyed wonderment to Grace\u0026rsquo;s far-seeing thoughtfulness to Stacy\u0026rsquo;s always-ready half-smile\u0026hellip; and yes, even Edwin\u0026rsquo;s post-Christmas-cow-killing grin! The only question is, how long can I stay away?\nRight now, there\u0026rsquo;s no answer to that question, and life has a way of leading us down all kinds of different paths. But I know that, sooner or later, I\u0026rsquo;ll end up here in Nyeri again. I hope it won\u0026rsquo;t be too long\u0026ndash;but even if it is, I know that the relationships I\u0026rsquo;ve gained\u0026ndash;brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins\u0026ndash;will still be here. But for the time being, this is my last entry from Kenya. I hope you\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed my third of the blog as much as I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed writing it\u0026ndash;and I hope Michael and Emilee keep the stories coming until they leave in a few weeks. I know that I for one will be looking eagerly for them as soon as I conclude my long two days of travel!\nAs they say in Swahili, Karibu Tena!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/02/goodbye-fine/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe time has come for me to leave Kenya. It\u0026rsquo;s ahead of my scheduled April departure, since I\u0026rsquo;m now needed back in the States for my sister\u0026rsquo;s upcoming wedding. Because of the suddenness, I haven\u0026rsquo;t had time yet to really appreciate what leaving means, and as I\u0026rsquo;ve begun saying goodbyes to those students who will be at school tomorrow when I leave, I\u0026rsquo;m awash with emotion. During the six months out of the last year (however non-consecutively) that I\u0026rsquo;ve spent living with the kids here, my average attitude towards them was probably some mixture of exasperation and bewilderment. The endless knocks on the door, the sly maneuvering to wheedle any variety of things from us, the interminable and insufferable church services\u0026hellip; I suppose that complaining about such things internally has masked the more gradual and quieter growth of what, I notice with surprise, can only be called love! I never thought I\u0026rsquo;d struggle to fight back tears when saying goodnight to an 8-year-old, or that a poorly-spelled note slipped under the door, insisting that \u0026ldquo;sualy we will miss you very much,\u0026rdquo; could drop me into a similar tailspin.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Goodbye! Fine."},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a shameful while since we\u0026rsquo;ve written, but the kids have been keeping us busy. We\u0026rsquo;re now in the last few weeks of training before our marathon in Tanzania, and so running has taken its toll! For my part, I\u0026rsquo;ve also been working with several of the kids to produce and record some songs they have written, before I leave Kenya at the end of this month (making the trip home for my sister\u0026rsquo;s wedding)!\nBetween the running and the music, I thought it\u0026rsquo;d be a great opportunity to film a short video, set to music by Mary (a student here at Tumaini). The subject of the video is \u0026rsquo;time trials\u0026rsquo;\u0026ndash;the 7k or 10k timed runs that Coach Titus has us do every few weeks to get a feel for how the kids are improving.\nOn this particular day, as you will see, the time trials were not universally understood and respected, whether by the kids or by nature itself\u0026ndash;but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t stop everyone from having a good time.\nEnjoy! And let me know what you think of this glimpse into our daily afternoon routine. (Apologies for YouTube, whose compression ruins the audio and whose watermark obscures some subtitles).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/02/time-trials/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been a shameful while since we\u0026rsquo;ve written, but the kids have been keeping us busy. We\u0026rsquo;re now in the last few weeks of training before our marathon in Tanzania, and so running has taken its toll! For my part, I\u0026rsquo;ve also been working with several of the kids to produce and record some songs they have written, before I leave Kenya at the end of this month (making the trip home for my sister\u0026rsquo;s wedding)!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Time Trials?"},{"content":"Apologies are no doubt owed for this relatively long radio silence. It has been due, thankfully, to our own busyness here and not because any of Kenya\u0026rsquo;s troubles have reached us at Nyeri. It is deeply saddening to read the news of what is going on in other parts of the country, and hear accounts of the pain firsthand (there are over 100 refugees living not 3 kilometers away in a local sports field). At the same time, we are grateful that we have been able to continue our work mostly unaffected, and that the kids haven\u0026rsquo;t been subject to anything outside of what\u0026rsquo;s on the TV.\nIn truth, life has been good here the last few weeks since I returned to Kenya, with our biggest hardships comprised of woes like finding the grocery store less than fully stocked, and slightly higher gas prices.\nThe computer classes at Tumaini have likewise continued, and I have the good fortune to be even at this moment looking at a blackboard with the remnants of what appears to be a lecture on \u0026ldquo;Computer Security\u0026rdquo;. The chalk on the board haphazardly forms a list, ostensibly of the various facets of \u0026ldquo;Computer Security\u0026rdquo;. They are (strictly mirroring punctuation and emphasis):\nEnvironmental Threats Clumsiness Stabili z ers Terrorists Attacks grudges Hmm. Apparently, \u0026lsquo;Environmental Threats\u0026rsquo; are the most ominous bad guys in the world of computer security. And I can see that; maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not obvious that computers should be kept out of the rain. But what are \u0026lsquo;Stabilizers\u0026rsquo;? And why do they threaten my PC? \u0026ldquo;No! Don\u0026rsquo;t bring that Stabilizer in here!\u0026rdquo;\nThe best, though, is clearly \u0026lsquo;grudges\u0026rsquo;. You never know when your computer\u0026rsquo;s security might be compromised by a grudge. And multiple grudges working in concert? Forget it, your RAM is hosed.\nYou might also be glad to know that from what I\u0026rsquo;ve overheard, the classes on word processing are just as helpful to the student.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2008/01/still-alive-computers-working-despite-grudges/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eApologies are no doubt owed for this relatively long radio silence. It has been due, thankfully, to our own busyness here and not because any of Kenya\u0026rsquo;s troubles have reached us at Nyeri. It is deeply saddening to read the news of what is going on in other parts of the country, and hear accounts of the pain firsthand (there are over 100 refugees living not 3 kilometers away in a local sports field). At the same time, we are grateful that we have been able to continue our work mostly unaffected, and that the kids haven\u0026rsquo;t been subject to anything outside of what\u0026rsquo;s on the TV.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Still Alive, Computers Working, Despite Grudges"},{"content":"While Michael and Emilee eat the Christmas Cow on December 25, I\u0026rsquo;ll be with some family in Camp Verde, AZ. The kids were disappointed when they heard I was going home for Christmas, and I don\u0026rsquo;t blame them\u0026ndash;in fact, I\u0026rsquo;m sad to miss the celebrations at Tumaini myself! A good number of the kids also thought I was purposefully abandoning them in favor of a \u0026lsquo;White Christmas\u0026rsquo;, and it was hard to convince them otherwise.\nIn actual fact, this is a sort of landmark Christmas for our family, since for the first time ever we have opted to forego all gift-giving and holiday money-spending, and instead are traveling to Arizona to fix up my aunt and uncle\u0026rsquo;s house, which has happened to be in a bit of a sad state. I\u0026rsquo;m certainly a bit self-conscious about how \u0026lsquo;self-righteous\u0026rsquo; this tactic can come across to people (I know I\u0026rsquo;ve thought that about those people who go work in soup kitchens on Christmas). Therefore, I am in no way passing judgment on those who do partake in The Rush this year. Still, there\u0026rsquo;s a genuine satisfaction in the idea as well, and indeed, my family can\u0026rsquo;t go anywhere without having a bit of fun, so we\u0026rsquo;re also planning a 2-day hike down and up the Grand Canyon. I haven\u0026rsquo;t been there for probably 15 years, so I\u0026rsquo;m excited to camp in the wintry desert location.\nBut all this was hard to explain to the kids, until I got a clue from Cucu Kariuki and decided to start telling people I was going to a \u0026lsquo;harambe\u0026rsquo;\u0026ndash;a sort of Kenyan festival held by friends or relatives of people who are in need, in order to raise money and supplies for them. It\u0026rsquo;s not the same, of course, but it\u0026rsquo;s close enough, and it did the trick: as soon as I mentioned \u0026lsquo;harambe\u0026rsquo;, they understood the need to go home. Still, had it been any other year, I would have loved to stay at Tumaini, and I envy Michael\u0026rsquo;s and Emilee\u0026rsquo;s opportunity to share Christmas with the kids.\nWell, after a long 42 hours of travel, I arrived back in San Francisco last night. What surprised me most was how unsurprising it was to be back in the States. After my previous 2-month stint in Kenya, the mass of development, the showers, the clean running water, etc\u0026hellip;, all caught me rather off guard. It took almost a full week to shake the feeling that something was very wrong somewhere. This time, everything just seems like, well, what it is. I suppose this state of affairs is neither good nor bad, but I found it interesting.\nNow, I\u0026rsquo;m killing the hour or two I have left before our midnight departure to the Grand Canyon. (On family road trips, we like to leave in the 2nd watch of the night, when traffic is at a minimum\u0026ndash;and this practice holds a lot of nostalgia for me). I\u0026rsquo;ve taken my fill of fast internet and hot showers (though finding high-protein vegetarian food has proved more difficult than in Kenya), and will now leave the blogging to those who are actually remaining in Kenya, until I return in early January. Happy Christmas! (And perhaps more appropriate for this particular day: Happy Winter Solstice!)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/12/an-american-interlude/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWhile Michael and Emilee eat the \u003ca href=\"http://hellofine.blogspot.com/2007/12/who-will-kill-christmas-cow.html\"\u003eChristmas Cow\u003c/a\u003e on December 25, I\u0026rsquo;ll be with some family in Camp Verde, AZ. The kids were disappointed when they heard I was going home for Christmas, and I don\u0026rsquo;t blame them\u0026ndash;in fact, I\u0026rsquo;m sad to miss the celebrations at Tumaini myself! A good number of the kids also thought I was \u003cem\u003epurposefully\u003c/em\u003e abandoning them in favor of a \u0026lsquo;White Christmas\u0026rsquo;, and it was hard to convince them otherwise.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"An American Interlude"},{"content":"Here at Tumaini, the kids have three meals: Githeri (beans and maize), Rice and Beans, and Ugali (beans and a maize polenta). Githeri is eaten for every lunch and quite a few dinners, whereas rice and beans and ugali are served less frequently. Given this monotony, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to explain the mounting excitement that accompanies the approach to Christmas here. You see, on Christmas, the children have told us, \u0026ldquo;we will eat cow!\u0026rdquo; This is one of the two days per year where they are allowed to eat meat (and because of or in spite of this many profess meat to be their favorite meal).\nIn addition to the cow, incidentally, several of the rabbits kept here for breeding are purportedly going to be eaten. And, since the rabbits are named (of course) after us and others of the volunteers who have stayed at Tumaini, many of the children take great delight in telling us that on Christmas, \u0026ldquo;we will eat Michael and Emilee!\u0026rdquo; And then they laugh diabolically. (Jonathan the rabbit will not be eaten at Christmas; At first I was glad, but then they told me that he has already been \u0026ldquo;eaten by dogs,\u0026rdquo; because \u0026ldquo;he rotted and died.\u0026rdquo;)\nAnyway, the three of us were sitting around last night, and wondered where they typically get the cow that they eat for Christmas. Then we realized they probably just kill one of the cows they keep on site. After discussing, agricultural newbs that we are, the horror involved in slaughtering an animal like that, and talking ignorantly about what method would be used, the question finally arose, Who will kill the Christmas cow?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s definitely going to be Edwin.\nEdwin, after killing last year\u0026rsquo;s Christmas Cow\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/12/who-will-kill-the-christmas-cow/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHere at Tumaini, the kids have three meals: Githeri (beans and maize), Rice and Beans, and Ugali (beans and a maize polenta). Githeri is eaten for every lunch and quite a few dinners, whereas rice and beans and ugali are served less frequently. Given this monotony, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to explain the mounting excitement that accompanies the approach to Christmas here. You see, on Christmas, the children have told us, \u0026ldquo;we will eat cow!\u0026rdquo; This is one of the two days per year where they are allowed to eat meat (and because of or in spite of this many profess meat to be their favorite meal).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Who Will Kill the Christmas Cow?"},{"content":"Waking up on Sunday morning in time for church is often difficult. I confess (all too readily, perhaps) that the church services here aren\u0026rsquo;t what I particularly crave in the way of spiritual edification. The music that sets my teeth decidedly on edge (insanely overblown speakers, off-key saccharine synth jams pumping from the electronic keyboard, etc\u0026hellip;) has already been mentioned, for example. Of course, they do some things here in Riamukurwe Parish that are a breath of fresh air. Women from the community, not even trained \u0026lsquo;ministers\u0026rsquo;, regularly preach. \u0026lsquo;Presentations\u0026rsquo;, or songs performed by any member of the congregation, take up a large portion of the service, and it\u0026rsquo;s nice to see such involvement appreciated (even if, to my classically-trained ears, those moments have a definite Purgatorial feel).\nBut, \u0026ldquo;Church\u0026rdquo; is another entry, deserving of a title different than \u0026ldquo;Monkey Nuts,\u0026rdquo; which you may be wondering about. The story I want to tell happened a few weeks ago, and it was in fact during one of those Sundays where Eunice, the Manager (heroine of so many of my blogs, it seems), was delivering the Word of God. As everyone who preaches seems to think, the Word of God by itself can be a bit boring, and so it\u0026rsquo;s good to spice the message up with illustrations and anecdotes.\nAs Michael, Emilee, and I were sitting three-quarters of the way to the back of the small church, Eunice began to tell a story about certain farmers in another part of Africa, ostensibly to support a point she was making. I was only half-listening, expecting this story to follow the general pattern, that is, to have no link at all to anything that has been said so far. I think I was right. But anyway, the story went something like this:\nThese farmers produce, as a cash crop, a certain variety of nuts which sell well in other regions. But, as it happens, a local species of monkey is driven wild with pleasure when eating these treats, and so they do all they can to steal them from the farmers. The farmers, being humans and therefore more ingenious than the monkeys, devised a way to trap the monkeys and save their crops: they would take some nuts and put them into a large clay pot with a very narrow mouth. The monkeys would smell the food, rush to the pots, and insert a little simian hand, grasping the nuts. Of course, their fistful of treasure then makes their paws too big to remove from the pot without first letting go of the prize. Unwilling to do this, the monkeys are forced to stay with one hand in the trap, until the farmers can come at leisure and kill them.\nSo far, so good. I thought it was a worthy story (in fact, one I\u0026rsquo;d heard about in 5th grade through science class, and liked). I could see where Eunice was going with it too\u0026ndash;the nuts are analogous like those things we foolishly hold on to that are going to bring us to ruin. Therefore, we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be like those monkeys (in our spiritual lives), clinging to pleasures that will only bring death.\nBut while I was thinking these things, Eunice made her conclusion in some unexpected words: \u0026ldquo;The Lord wants you to release your monkey nuts!\u0026rdquo;\nI snickered, and looked around thinking everyone else must be too. But all the Kenyans were staring straight ahead, some simply nodding in agreement. Eunice went on, excited by her point. And then she said it again, with feeling: \u0026quot; The LORD wants you to release your monkey nuts!\u0026quot;\nI realized at once I was in trouble. The Lord wants me to release my monkey nuts? Ha. Ha ha ha. Monkey nuts! Though I don\u0026rsquo;t laugh at every dirty double entendre I hear, the context, the complete lack of intention, was too much. The corners of my mouth began to quiver, and soon I found myself smiling uncontrollably. A Kenyan to my left looked at me, and I looked down, hiding my face. Then the laughing began: those stomach shakes that I refused to let move up to the throat. \u0026ldquo;If only I can avoid looking at Michael and Emilee,\u0026rdquo; I thought, \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ll be OK.\u0026rdquo;\nBut Eunice was not on my side. Really worked up now, she got a bit more personal, and asked the congregation a question, leaning forward from the pulpit and talking in a suddenly low, serious voice: \u0026ldquo;What nuts are you holding on to?\u0026rdquo; she said with a penetrating gaze.\nAnd that was it. A stifled guffaw inadvertently escaped my lips, and I ducked behind the pew in front of me, pretending to be reading a Bible. Then I heard movement from Emilee beside me, and saw that she too was trying to keep from breaking out in laughter. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t see Michael, and that was probably what saved us all from total humiliation. But, that feeling came that we all know, when it\u0026rsquo;s one of those times where it\u0026rsquo;s completely inappropriate to laugh, but two people think something is funny, and the mere fact that they know the other thinks it\u0026rsquo;s funny too makes it impossible to get a grip.\nRemembering that I\u0026rsquo;d read about such situations, I tried a folk remedy and started pinching myself. The pain didn\u0026rsquo;t help. And so I stayed bowed forward for a full minute, until I thought the storm had passed, and the lashings of laughter subsided. Eunice had moved on, and we were in the clear. That is, until she came to her grand finale, and in full-throated Kenyan fashion made her pronouncement: \u0026ldquo;It is not a surprise that some of us will burn in Eternal Hellfire because we are holding on to monkey nuts!\u0026rdquo;\nSo true, Eunice, so true.\nNeedless to say, a lot of people were wondering what was going on with the Wazungu, though no comments were made. I tried to make it look like I had been crying (and I was\u0026hellip;), moved by the sermon\u0026ndash;but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t that kind of sermon. Anyway, it\u0026rsquo;s these little cultural or linguistic differences, and other random hilarities, that keep life here exciting. Like tonight, while playing Pictionary with the Form 4 Leavers (the secondary school graduates), when the phrase to draw was, appropriately, \u0026ldquo;Baby Jesus\u0026rdquo;. One team\u0026rsquo;s artist chose to signify the stick-figure infant\u0026rsquo;s holy status by drawing a manger, and streaks of light shining gloriously around Jesus\u0026rsquo; body. The other team\u0026rsquo;s artist chose a more realistic tack, and decided instead to draw the little newborn, not just as Baby Jesus, but as \u0026ldquo;Extremely Well-Endowed Baby Jesus If You Know What I Mean\u0026rdquo;. Everyone in the room had a good laugh for about 10 minutes. Oh, and in case you were wondering: the streaks of shining glorious light turned out to be a better symbol\u0026ndash;our team won.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/12/monkey-nuts/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWaking up on Sunday morning in time for church is often difficult. I confess (all too readily, perhaps) that the church services here aren\u0026rsquo;t what I particularly crave in the way of spiritual edification. The music that sets my teeth decidedly on edge (insanely overblown speakers, off-key saccharine synth jams pumping from the electronic keyboard, etc\u0026hellip;) has already been mentioned, for example. Of course, they do some things here in Riamukurwe Parish that are a breath of fresh air. Women from the community, not even trained \u0026lsquo;ministers\u0026rsquo;, regularly preach. \u0026lsquo;Presentations\u0026rsquo;, or songs performed by any member of the congregation, take up a large portion of the service, and it\u0026rsquo;s nice to see such involvement appreciated (even if, to my classically-trained ears, those moments have a definite Purgatorial feel).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Monkey Nuts"},{"content":"A few Fridays ago, when the always-sketchy Internet here at Tumaini began hiccuping, we didn\u0026rsquo;t think much of it. It was normal. Almost two weeks later, we know better.\nThe first few days, we attributed the lack of Internet to environmental causes, like the weather. Or perhaps the guy who holds the data tubes together had fallen asleep. When we run out of water for strange amounts of time, I wonder the same thing.\nThen, we began to ask the computer room teacher, Ann, what was going on. She asked us if we\u0026rsquo;d seen \u0026ldquo;those wires in the street.\u0026rdquo; I thought for a moment\u0026ndash;yes, running earlier that day, I\u0026rsquo;d seen some wire coiled up in the street. \u0026ldquo;The problem is those ones,\u0026rdquo; she said. Apparently, that was the phone line for the area. And yeah, that would be a problem.\nIn what seems to be typical Kenyan fashion, every day we asked Ann whether she\u0026rsquo;d spoken with the communications company and if they were going to fix it, she said, \u0026ldquo;Yes, they\u0026rsquo;re coming tomorrow to fix it.\u0026rdquo; \u0026lsquo;Tomorrow\u0026rsquo; kept one day ahead of us, however, and so Thanksgiving passed without e-mail contact.\nWe took bets on when the Internet would be back. We were all wrong! I began to worry\u0026ndash;all my online projects might have suddenly failed and I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even know.\nFinally, all the \u0026rsquo;tomorrows\u0026rsquo; coalesced into \u0026rsquo;today\u0026rsquo;, and a Telkom employee came to fiddle with something this morning. The Internet works again! I can catch up on more days\u0026rsquo; worth of e-mail than I\u0026rsquo;ve had to in over 10 years. We can write blogs again\u0026ndash;and stay tuned, because a lot of great stuff has happened in the past few weeks. Apologies for our absence!\nLike water and electricity, the Internet has truly come into its own as a utility\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/11/the-great-internet-outage-of-2007/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA few Fridays ago, when the always-sketchy Internet here at Tumaini began hiccuping, we didn\u0026rsquo;t think much of it. It was normal. Almost two weeks later, we know better.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first few days, we attributed the lack of Internet to environmental causes, like the weather. Or perhaps the guy who holds the data tubes together had fallen asleep. When we run out of water for strange amounts of time, I wonder the same thing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Great Internet Outage of 2007"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;I used to look after some cows,\u0026rdquo; the conversation began. Christopher, about 17 years old, had just seated himself on our couch and was twirling our massage stick in absentminded circles as he began to talk in a rambling way about his childhood. We hadn\u0026rsquo;t asked any particular question; he seemed glad to sit and felt like talking, so he talked.\nChristopher shared easily, with obvious confidence in himself, and with an even didactic air, knowing that what he was saying would be interesting and maybe shocking to us: pampered visitors from a posh and indolent country, who count even the most insignificant inconveniences as severe trials.\nAn hour later, after listening to the disconnected but always fascinating anecdotes, we were left, as you\u0026rsquo;d expect, with nothing to say. Apart from our periodic courteous mumblings of attention and empathy, Christopher had carried the conversation entirely by himself. Of course, we never heard another word about the cows.\nInstead, we learned about the tribal wars between the Turkana and Samburu in Christopher\u0026rsquo;s earlier years, how he had seen it break out, and the lives he had seen it claim. He told us of finding high school students dead in the thorn bushes, after being given guns by the local clan leaders\u0026ndash;gifts for being in their final year\u0026ndash;and asked to kill the enemy. He told us that when they searched the bodies (a practice he took for granted), they often found graded papers, returned that day by the teacher, and perhaps on their way home to be shown to parents.\nHe told us of the helicopter he saw shot down (\u0026ldquo;killed\u0026rdquo;), how it crumpled \u0026ldquo;like paper\u0026rdquo; and burned, with nothing to salvage. The men who shot it down, he said, had killed so many people they no longer thought it would be a bad thing to do. Then he looked at each of us and explained sadly, \u0026ldquo;Some times you can do so many wrong things that after a while your conscience doesn\u0026rsquo;t know it\u0026rsquo;s wrong anymore.\u0026rdquo;\nI agreed, realizing he knew a lot more about it than I did.\nInterspersed with other random anecdotes (some, thankfully, much more lighthearted), we learned why Christopher had last cried almost 10 years ago, at the death of his grandfather. He had seen so many people die, that he said, \u0026ldquo;I can feel sadness in the heart, but it will never make it to my eyes.\u0026rdquo; He agreed, however, that it is good to be sad.\nAll the while, Christopher\u0026rsquo;s attitude and body language bespoke an unworried and unhurried mind. Every story of trial long-past was followed by one of thanksgiving. He prayed to go to secondary school, and, after his parents could no longer take care of him and he found himself admitted to Tumaini, he did. In another year he\u0026rsquo;ll graduate. He prayed fervently that one day he would be able to play a drum set, and the church recently purchased one. Christopher now plays it every Sunday, untutored, but with natural ability.\nHis childhood was, we would say, defined by poverty and death. But simply because he\u0026rsquo;s able to go to school, and can play a drum set that he doesn\u0026rsquo;t even own, Christopher thinks God must love him. Christopher knows and feels God\u0026rsquo;s love, in those simple gifts.\n(Oh, how that shames me and my arrogant doubting! A churlish fool in such a cloud of blessing as I have been placed!)\nBut even words of thanksgiving don\u0026rsquo;t stop him from telling yet more stories. And so shame is pushed aside as I struggle to parse Christopher\u0026rsquo;s Kenyan English. We listen with surprise as he tells us that his father is accustomed to walking from Nyeri to Nairobi (a distance of about 150km) whenever business requires. Why pay the equivalent of a few dollars for a bus ride when you can walk for two days?\nApparently, it\u0026rsquo;s a family skill Christopher\u0026rsquo;s father wanted to pass on: when Christopher was in junior high, his dad woke him up one day and asked the boy to accompany him to Karatina and back (about 85km total). We asked Christopher why they went. He doesn\u0026rsquo;t know, but he has a guess: \u0026ldquo;He just wanted to see how well I could walk.\u0026rdquo; Not surprisingly, Christopher is now one of Tumaini\u0026rsquo;s best marathoners.\nTumaini is such a wonderful place, we often forget that each of the 175 children here have stories much more like Christopher\u0026rsquo;s than like our own. It is good to be reminded of that, when we have the capacity to hear it.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/11/tumaini-lives-part-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I used to look after some cows,\u0026rdquo; the conversation began. Christopher, about 17 years old, had just seated himself on our couch and was twirling our massage stick in absentminded circles as he began to talk in a rambling way about his childhood. We hadn\u0026rsquo;t asked any particular question; he seemed glad to sit and felt like talking, so he talked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChristopher shared easily, with obvious confidence in himself, and with an even didactic air, knowing that what he was saying would be interesting and maybe shocking to us: pampered visitors from a posh and indolent country, who count even the most insignificant inconveniences as severe trials.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tumaini Lives, Part I"},{"content":"Since I moved to Kenya for 6 months, I\u0026rsquo;m keeping a blog elsewhere, and writing in it more frequently along with my friends who are here with me as well. Check it out!\nHello! Fine. ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/11/hello-fine/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSince I moved to Kenya for 6 months, I\u0026rsquo;m keeping a blog elsewhere, and writing in it more frequently along with my friends who are here with me as well. Check it out!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://hellofine.blogspot.com\"\u003eHello! Fine.\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Hello! Fine."},{"content":"Mere days after arriving here at Tumaini, Emilee, Michael and myself have found ourselves thrust into (somewhat dubious) positions of \u0026lsquo;authority\u0026rsquo; as \u0026rsquo;leaders\u0026rsquo; of the Three Houses of Tumaini.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know where Eunice, the manager, got the idea to split the children into \u0026lsquo;Houses\u0026rsquo;, and I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it wasn\u0026rsquo;t from Harry Potter. At any rate, she thought it best to have three houses (rather than four)\u0026ndash;one for each of us volunteers to manage.\nThe point behind splitting up into Houses is still a bit vague. As far as I can tell, it\u0026rsquo;s only going to be officially relevant during certain competitive athletic events we\u0026rsquo;re responsible for organizing. Still, for myself, I hope the House mentality takes deeper root in the every aspect of Tumaini life. I want different colored t-shirts (you know, like the scarves in Harry Potter), a good-natured (but seriously-taken), constant battle between Houses for no apparent reason, and mythical importance attached to the House namesakes.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure why I want this (especially since I think nationalism, tribalism, and any other \u0026lsquo;ism\u0026rsquo; that divides people arbitrarily are patently absurd). Perhaps it derives from childhood in Papua New Guinea, when our school would have sports days where we were divided into teams\u0026ndash;Pirates, Vikings, and Lions\u0026ndash;and I was a Viking. (We had red shirts).\nEunice, predictably, required that the House names be Biblical in some way. That ruined plans for \u0026ldquo;Cheetah/Lion/Leopard\u0026rdquo; and such cool totemic trios with obvious mascots. In the end, eschewing ideas like \u0026ldquo;House Mishpah\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;House Hezekiah\u0026rdquo; (because who knows when the home will admit a child named Hezekiah?), we settled on 3 of the great rivers mentioned, at least in passing, in the Bible: the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile.\nIn a sophisticated process involving the numbers 1-3 and a pen, we divided all the children up into these three Houses, and each picked our river. Emilee went for the catty Tigris, Michael the erudite Euphrates, and for myself: the all-powerful, monstrous, hypnotic, Nile! I win, at least in length, I think.\nBut now, we have to figure out what exactly what any of this means, besides getting a million knocks on our door every day which betoken the sudden appearance of unhappy children wanting to know if they can be in their friend\u0026rsquo;s House.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/11/tumaini-is-the-new-hogwarts/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMere days after arriving here at Tumaini, Emilee, Michael and myself have found ourselves thrust into (somewhat dubious) positions of \u0026lsquo;authority\u0026rsquo; as \u0026rsquo;leaders\u0026rsquo; of the Three Houses of Tumaini.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI don\u0026rsquo;t know where Eunice, the manager, got the idea to split the children into \u0026lsquo;Houses\u0026rsquo;, and I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it wasn\u0026rsquo;t from Harry Potter. At any rate, she thought it best to have three houses (rather than four)\u0026ndash;one for each of us volunteers to manage.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tumaini is the New Hogwarts"},{"content":"\nIn Swahili, Kenya\u0026rsquo;s lingua franca, one of the standard greetings is the question \u0026ldquo;Hujambo?\u0026rdquo; This is a contraction of the phrase, \u0026ldquo;Huna jambo?\u0026rdquo;, meaning literally, \u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t have any problems, do you?\u0026rdquo; The standard reply is \u0026ldquo;Sijambo!\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t have any problems!\u0026rdquo;. Most people shorten both of these even further, such that the exchange is more like: \u0026ldquo;Jambo?\u0026rdquo; \u0026hellip; \u0026ldquo;Jambo!\u0026rdquo;.\nAnyway, when Kenyan children learn English, they obviously learn (paralleling Swahili) that the standard greeting is a question-and-answer: \u0026ldquo;How are you?\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;to which the reply is \u0026ldquo;Fine.\u0026rdquo; Here\u0026rsquo;s how we know:\nJust as any language-learners would do, the children seem to take any greeting we give them as this (standard) one, of \u0026ldquo;How are you?\u0026rdquo; The other greeting \u0026ldquo;Hello\u0026rdquo; seems to have been assimilated into it, such that, almost every time we greet a child with a warm \u0026ldquo;Hello!\u0026rdquo;, we get back a cheerful \u0026ldquo;Yes, fine!\u0026rdquo;\nThis is very funny.\n\u0026ldquo;Hello!\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Fine.\u0026rdquo;\nOf course, it is just one of the many idiosyncrasies of the place we are calling home for almost 6 months\u0026ndash;the Tumaini Children\u0026rsquo;s Home, outside of Nyeri, Kenya. Apart from us 3 white Americans (and all caucasians are classed as Wazungu, or \u0026ldquo;Europeans\u0026rdquo;), the orphanage is home to about 200 children, who have been admitted for a number of reasons (the primary one being the death of parents due to AIDS), and a small handful of staff.\nI (Jonathan) spent a few months here earlier this year during the formation of Hope Runs, an NGO started by some friends. Hope Runs uses running training to educate the children and provide them with opportunity, while raising global awareness of issues surrounding orphans and vulnerable children.\nThe three of us (Emilee, Michael, and myself) decided to come to Tumaini for a while, to keep these programs going, to start various others, and primarily to be friends to those here, while at the same time living as an extension of the intentional Christian community of which we are a part (located in Palo Alto, California).\nOver the next few months, we hope to take turns writing little windows into what\u0026rsquo;s happening here, from cultural notes to (hopefully funny) stories, and also to share some photos. So stay tuned! Because \u0026ldquo;Hello! Fine.\u0026rdquo; is just the beginning of the conversation. The rest, we\u0026rsquo;re sure, will be just as nonsensical!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/11/welcome-to-hello-fine/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/duka.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Swahili, Kenya\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003elingua franca\u003c/em\u003e, one of the standard greetings is the question \u0026ldquo;Hujambo?\u0026rdquo; This is a contraction of the phrase, \u0026ldquo;Huna jambo?\u0026rdquo;, meaning literally, \u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t have any problems, do you?\u0026rdquo; The standard reply is \u0026ldquo;Sijambo!\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t have any problems!\u0026rdquo;. Most people shorten both of these even further, such that the exchange is more like: \u0026ldquo;Jambo?\u0026rdquo; \u0026hellip; \u0026ldquo;Jambo!\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnyway, when Kenyan children learn English, they obviously learn (paralleling Swahili) that the standard greeting is a question-and-answer: \u0026ldquo;How are you?\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;to which the reply is \u0026ldquo;Fine.\u0026rdquo; Here\u0026rsquo;s how we know:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Welcome to Hello! Fine."},{"content":"In a move reminiscent of Christ himself, my favorite e-zine, The Holy Observer, is back! This is Christian satire and parody at its finest. Perfectly irreverent and hilarious, they put their finger on everything that makes us cringe about Christians and their culture.\nA few years ago, the site went down without any explanation, so in their own tradition I wrote up a fake news article about what had happened. I never got around to posting it, but now is the perfect occasion. Looks like I may have been wrong!\nAnyway, here it is:\nPLYMOUTH, MI - Marcus Crosby, founder of the online newspaper The Holy Observer, was discovered dead in his apartment early this afternoon. While local authorities have not released any autopsy data as of yet,the police officer who responded to an anonymous tip and found Crosby (himself speaking on condition of anonymity) informed us that it looks as though Crosby had been dead quite some time, possibly weeks.\nSuicide appears to have been ruled out, since Crosby suffered a number of massive blows to the head with some large, flat object that was removed from the scene of the crime. Our anonymous source also said that there were curious gold dust sparkles left in the impressions made in Crosby\u0026rsquo;s skull, which may be meaningful evidence for the crime scene investigators.\nWhile authorities are calling it murder, Crosby was indeed known to be somewhat of a recluse; we spoke with one of the tenants in his apartment building, who said that Crosby would often stay in his apartment for days, working on articles for his Internet newspaper, and only leaving to go for a jog around the nearby park from time to time.\nWhen asked about The Holy Observer, Crosby\u0026rsquo;s neighbor replied:\n\u0026ldquo;Yeah, I knew he worked on that paper. What I couldn\u0026rsquo;t figure out is how he could write so many news interviews without ever leaving his apartment! Maybe he always took the red-eye. Anyway, I haven\u0026rsquo;t read [the news site] much myself, but I know it wasn\u0026rsquo;t really popular with some folks, you know, the Fundamentalists and all. I bet you that\u0026rsquo;s who\u0026rsquo;s done him in; now I come to think of it, isn\u0026rsquo;t the Fundamentalist Threat Level at \u0026ldquo;High\u0026rdquo; or something these days? Crosby must have been a ripe target\u0026hellip;he obviously didn\u0026rsquo;t take the right precautions.\u0026rdquo;\nCrosby\u0026rsquo;s neighbor left off speculation there, but continued to say that he wasn\u0026rsquo;t too worried about himself or his daughter, as they went to a nearby mega-church and were doing a good job at pretending to be \u0026ldquo;regular Christians\u0026rdquo;.\n\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s just not worth it these days not to believe, what with the religious and political climate in this country, and so many Fundamentalist leaders willing to call for assassinations at the drop of a hat! It\u0026rsquo;s crazy\u0026ndash;they must not be reading their Hezekiah very closely! Aren\u0026rsquo;t we supposed to observe the news of the Lord?\u0026rdquo;\nA homeless woman who had been spending the nights in the park across from Crosby\u0026rsquo;s apartment proved to be a valuable resource for local authorities. While they were initially inclined to regard her as delusional, due to her reports of \u0026ldquo;glorious silver laptops\u0026rdquo; appearing under nearby trees when no one was looking, she has provided the only sliver of a lead they have. Apparently, earlier in the week, she was woken by the sound of a door closing and looked across the street to see someone run down the stairs from Crosby\u0026rsquo;s apartment, jump into a white 15-passenger van, and drive off.\nShe said she took no notice of the event because she thought it was Crosby himself leaving. Crosby did not own a vehicle, however, and so law enforcement believes this woman might have caught a glimpse of the killer and getaway vehicle. Initial reports also indicate that the vehicle was not entirely nondescript, but appeared to be a professional service vehicle of some kind, as there was a phrase written across the length of it. Despite prodding from police psychologists, however, the homeless woman has not been able to remember the words, though she has said that it was not a delivery van, such as FedEx, and instead looked like a passenger vehicle.\nCrosby\u0026rsquo;s next-of-kin are not known, nor is it known whether there were collaborators on his website project, which evidence indicates he was preparing to update with a new issue of The Holy Observer. Unfortunately, his Apple laptop was destroyed, and authorities have found only sketch-drafts of the to-be-published articles. They are now perusing them in the hopes of finding some incriminating evidence the killer might have been trying to prevent being published.\nAuthorities are also scouring The Holy Observer online (which has been left unchanged since the end of 2004) for clues, and are hoping to add a few names to the suspect list, since Crosby was in the habit of making public vitriolic and/or ignorant feedback e-mails and then commenting on them. We were informed that the most promising lead is one \u0026ldquo;Carol\u0026rdquo;, who said that Crosby was a \u0026ldquo;blight on [the information] highway\u0026rdquo;, and who might have a grudge against Crosby and The Holy Observer, or other motives for revenge.\nA team of analysts has reportedly been set to a somewhat different task\u0026ndash;discovering if there are any others who worked on The Holy Observer\u0026ndash;with the goal of warning them of and protecting them against similar attacks. Plymouth police chief Frank Cassano has received special confirmation from the FBI that they will be invited to accept the asylum of the US Witness Protection Program, which has a high degree of success in potentially-serial cases like this one.\nFor now, readers are advised to be aware that the Christian Fundamentalist Threat Level is indeed at orange, or \u0026ldquo;High\u0026rdquo;, and to restrict activities which might bring attention from the Religious Right. Furthermore, if you have any information regarding this crime or anyone connected to The Holy Observer, you are asked to please contact Chief Cassano.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/10/the-holy-observer-resurrected/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn a move reminiscent of Christ himself, my favorite e-zine, \u003ca href=\"http://www.holyobserver.com\"\u003eThe Holy Observer\u003c/a\u003e, is back! This is Christian satire and parody at its finest. Perfectly irreverent and hilarious, they put their finger on everything that makes us cringe about Christians and their culture.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA few years ago, the site went down without any explanation, so in their own tradition I wrote up a fake news article about what had happened. I never got around to posting it, but now is the perfect occasion. Looks like I may have been wrong!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Holy Observer Resurrected"},{"content":" My car\nWhen I decided to go to Africa for 6 months (and do who knows what after that), it became increasingly clear that keeping my car was not going to be easy. Insurance payments and finding a place to store it just weren\u0026rsquo;t options. And so, somewhat grudgingly, I began the process of trying to sell it about a month ago. At that time it was a very practical and financial decision, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t think much of it. Now I\u0026rsquo;m sitting here with the fattest wad of cash I\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen, no car, and surprisingly strong emotions.\nI feel, for whatever reason, as if I\u0026rsquo;ve lost a friend or a long-loved pet. It can\u0026rsquo;t be the wheels themselves\u0026ndash;if anything, having a car has been somewhat of a burden with gas prices being so high, having to worry about maintenance, etc\u0026hellip; For the most part, I didn\u0026rsquo;t need a car in Palo Alto, and I certainly don\u0026rsquo;t need one to get around here in San Francisco. So why do I miss my beautiful white Civic?\nI think a lot of things are wrapped up in it. It was the first car I ever bought, during my junior year at Stanford. I can remember being with my parents at the car lot, learning the tricks of the car buying trade, knowing what I wanted but knowing I couldn\u0026rsquo;t afford it, and finally finding a good (if expensive) match in my little Civic. That was a somewhat momentous process in and of itself, and the car loan was the first monthly payment I ever had! Definitely \u0026ldquo;coming of age\u0026rdquo;.\nBut fundamentally, it has to be the memories. Memories of adventure, companionship, solitude, of joyful or tearful singing in the only place I could go where I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about anyone hearing. Memories of driving a girl to dinner (and trying to be all cool because I was driving stick), or memories of the drive up the 280 to San Francisco, hitting the steering wheel and crying in frustration because I\u0026rsquo;d fouled up yet another romantic opportunity. Memories of driving cross-country with David and camping in a deserted Joshua Tree, or tackling the winding 140 before dawn with Dan dozing, on our way to a climb in Tuolumne.\nFor me, the car was never something I got into to take me to work\u0026ndash;never anything I dreaded. Sure, I used it for grocery shopping and day-to-day errands, but the vast majority of the 40,000 miles I put on it were road trip miles, adventure miles, real life miles. So tonight, as I watched the new owner drive away, it felt somehow wrong, as if he had stolen many of my favorite moments from the past four and a half years. I wanted to run after and say, \u0026ldquo;No! I take it back!\u0026rdquo; I think we both got a fair deal out of the transaction, but something inside says that I sold the car (\u0026ldquo;her\u0026rdquo;, if you want to anthropomorphize) far too cheaply.\nWell, at the end of the day, she\u0026rsquo;s just a chunk of metal and gears, however pretty she was. And I\u0026rsquo;m not meant to care that much about a chunk of metal and gears. The memories will have to find another repository, and I\u0026rsquo;m sure they\u0026rsquo;ll last much longer than the car, however the new owner treats it! For now, I need the money to pursue the path that I\u0026rsquo;ve chosen. I could spiritualize the moment more than is necessary, and claim that it was for the kingdom of God (and who knows, maybe it is), but that\u0026rsquo;s not the point. Whatever the case, I just sold my most financially valuable possession. Not quite \u0026ldquo;everything\u0026rdquo;, but it\u0026rsquo;s a start.\nSo, in honor of the car\u0026rsquo;s exit from my life story, I thought I\u0026rsquo;d post a few (chronologically ordered) pictures to commemorate the role it played in a lot of really important moments for me. Of course, it\u0026rsquo;s not an exhaustive album, but it will have to do.\nGoodbye, Little Car!\nThe car\u0026rsquo;s first trip to Tahoe, in 2003 (and my snowboard\u0026rsquo;s first ride!)\nDav and I in Bishop, CA after a day of climbing on our 2004 cross-country trip to Orlando\nCrossing into Florida on the same trip, during the longest continuous drive of my life (24 hours of just me driving, with stops only for gas)\nPutting the spoiler on the car with my Dad (it was a birthday gift!)\nDriving back across the country with Erin in 2005 after I left my home to live in the community in Palo Alto. This is Kansas.\nA few hours of snow accumulation on the car during a trip to Bear Valley with Kyle and Dan (because of snow and avalanches, we had 2 hours of boarding and close to 13 of driving)\nStopped on the 395 (my favorite road) with Dan, on the way to climb Mt Whitney in 2006\nMe, tonight, a few hours before the car was driven away for good!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/10/goodbye-car/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/car8.jpg\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMy car\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen I decided to go to Africa for 6 months (and do who knows what after that), it became increasingly clear that keeping my car was not going to be easy. Insurance payments and finding a place to store it just weren\u0026rsquo;t options. And so, somewhat grudgingly, I began the process of trying to sell it about a month ago. At that time it was a very practical and financial decision, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t think much of it. Now I\u0026rsquo;m sitting here with the fattest wad of cash I\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen, no car, and surprisingly strong emotions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI feel, for whatever reason, as if I\u0026rsquo;ve lost a friend or a long-loved pet. It can\u0026rsquo;t be the wheels themselves\u0026ndash;if anything, having a car has been somewhat of a burden with gas prices being so high, having to worry about maintenance, etc\u0026hellip; For the most part, I didn\u0026rsquo;t need a car in Palo Alto, and I certainly don\u0026rsquo;t need one to get around here in San Francisco. So why do I miss my beautiful white Civic?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI think a lot of things are wrapped up in it. It was the first car I ever bought, during my junior year at Stanford. I can remember being with my parents at the car lot, learning the tricks of the car buying trade, knowing what I wanted but knowing I couldn\u0026rsquo;t afford it, and finally finding a good (if expensive) match in my little Civic. That was a somewhat momentous process in and of itself, and the car loan was the first monthly payment I ever had! Definitely \u0026ldquo;coming of age\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut fundamentally, it has to be the memories. Memories of adventure, companionship, solitude, of joyful or tearful singing in the only place I could go where I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about anyone hearing. Memories of driving a girl to dinner (and trying to be all cool because I was driving stick), or memories of the drive up the 280 to San Francisco, hitting the steering wheel and crying in frustration because I\u0026rsquo;d fouled up yet another romantic opportunity. Memories of driving cross-country with David and camping in a deserted Joshua Tree, or tackling the winding 140 before dawn with Dan dozing, on our way to a climb in Tuolumne.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor me, the car was never something I got into to take me to work\u0026ndash;never anything I dreaded. Sure, I used it for grocery shopping and day-to-day errands, but the vast majority of the 40,000 miles I put on it were road trip miles, adventure miles, \u003cem\u003ereal life\u003c/em\u003e miles. So tonight, as I watched the new owner drive away, it felt somehow wrong, as if he had stolen many of my favorite moments from the past four and a half years. I wanted to run after and say, \u0026ldquo;No! I take it back!\u0026rdquo; I think we both got a fair deal out of the transaction, but something inside says that I sold the car (\u0026ldquo;her\u0026rdquo;, if you want to anthropomorphize) far too cheaply.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell, at the end of the day, she\u0026rsquo;s just a chunk of metal and gears, however pretty she was. And I\u0026rsquo;m not meant to care that much about a chunk of metal and gears. The memories will have to find another repository, and I\u0026rsquo;m sure they\u0026rsquo;ll last much longer than the car, however the new owner treats it! For now, I need the money to pursue the path that I\u0026rsquo;ve chosen. I could spiritualize the moment more than is necessary, and claim that it was for the kingdom of God (and who knows, maybe it is), but that\u0026rsquo;s not the point. Whatever the case, I just sold my most financially valuable possession. Not quite \u0026ldquo;everything\u0026rdquo;, but it\u0026rsquo;s a start.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, in honor of the car\u0026rsquo;s exit from my life story, I thought I\u0026rsquo;d post a few (chronologically ordered) pictures to commemorate the role it played in a lot of really important moments for me. Of course, it\u0026rsquo;s not an exhaustive album, but it will have to do.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGoodbye, Little Car!\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Goodbye, Car"},{"content":"I had the opportunity to spend a week with my parents in Costa Rica recently, and wanted to share some photos from the trip. They\u0026rsquo;re primarily from San Jose, where we spent most of our time, but a few are from the Tabacon hot springs up near the volcano Arenal.\nSimply click on the photo below to see the whole photo set at Flickr:\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/09/costa-rica-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI had the opportunity to spend a week with my parents in Costa Rica recently, and wanted to share some photos from the trip. They\u0026rsquo;re primarily from San Jose, where we spent most of our time, but a few are from the Tabacon hot springs up near the volcano Arenal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSimply click on the photo below to see the whole photo set at Flickr:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.flickr.com/gp/94593494@N00/59d638\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1184/1453910929_47ddc929b7_m.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Costa Rica"},{"content":" The world is a flood, a roaring flood Of different voices and experiences Each a call, a clamor for justification Each drowning out all else The song is shrill, fingers in ears Eyes closed, mouth working Streams that shatter instead of flow (Just one sperm gets the egg) Cast in the torrent we sink or swim And in both the drift inexorable Downward in the great dissipation A waterfall of pure selfish Shout By some chance an eddy forms A silence outside the current A strange vacuum we find, and Hear ourselves for the first time My great contribution to the world My voice in its endless streams Now in the beautiful stillness Is heard as a strident “me, me, me” In the clatter my voice was my own As a puppet may be unique in all respects, But still moved by the same strings: Essence of chains though seeming free In these backwaters there’s no need To scream ourselves deaf in isolation But listening together, a voice ex nihilo invades Low frequency song from eternity past The song was there in the flood A hum of bass or treble dance of stars But in the quiet heard for what it is The tale of a different Stream altogether Then a snake of a current grabs ahold The quiet corner is no more We disappear back into the noise The striving to tell right from wrong And we forget the sound of the voice That alien song of still, deep pools But we remember the memory, And hope that by its magic We might spin free from the flood once more ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/09/the-flood/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"highlight\"\u003e\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\" style=\"color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4;-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;\"\u003e\u003ccode class=\"language-fallback\" data-lang=\"fallback\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe world is a flood, a roaring flood\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOf different voices and experiences\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEach a call, a clamor for justification\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEach drowning out all else\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe song is shrill, fingers in ears\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEyes closed, mouth working\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStreams that shatter instead of flow\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e(Just one sperm gets the egg)\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCast in the torrent we sink or swim\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd in both the drift inexorable\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDownward in the great dissipation\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA waterfall of pure selfish Shout\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBy some chance an eddy forms\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA silence outside the current\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA strange vacuum we find, and\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHear ourselves for the first time\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy great contribution to the world\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy voice in its endless streams\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNow in the beautiful stillness\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIs heard as a strident “me, me, me”\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the clatter my voice was my own\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs a puppet may be unique in all respects,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut still moved by the same strings:\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEssence of chains though seeming free\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn these backwaters there’s no need\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTo scream ourselves deaf in isolation\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut listening together, a voice ex nihilo invades\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLow frequency song from eternity past\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe song was there in the flood\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA hum of bass or treble dance of stars\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut in the quiet heard for what it is\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe tale of a different Stream altogether\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen a snake of a current grabs ahold\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe quiet corner is no more\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe disappear back into the noise\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe striving to tell right from wrong\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd we forget the sound of the voice\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat alien song of still, deep pools\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut we remember the memory,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd hope that by its magic\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe might spin free from the flood once more\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"The Flood"},{"content":"My community spent a week in the wilderness recently, trekking from Mammoth to Tuolumne in California\u0026rsquo;s Sierras. It was an incredible journey, filled with fun, rest, and even a few challenges along the way (including some adrenalin-pumping encounters with bears). Sadly, my camera broke on day 2, but I did manage to capture a few shots, and the last ones these lenses did see were, quite frankly, astounding. The colors involved in alpine sunsets are fantastic!\nJust click on the picture to access the photo set.\nBackpacking in the Sierras\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/09/photos-from-the-sierras/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMy community spent a week in the wilderness recently, trekking from Mammoth to Tuolumne in California\u0026rsquo;s Sierras. It was an incredible journey, filled with fun, rest, and even a few challenges along the way (including some adrenalin-pumping encounters with bears). Sadly, my camera broke on day 2, but I did manage to capture a few shots, and the last ones these lenses did see were, quite frankly, astounding. The colors involved in alpine sunsets are fantastic!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Photos from the Sierras"},{"content":"One thing I\u0026rsquo;ve realized in the recent move up to San Francisco is that I have a lot of Stuff. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;d have noticed if moving into an empty apartment\u0026ndash;all my Stuff only filled 2 cars\u0026ndash;but since I\u0026rsquo;m moving temporarily into a room that\u0026rsquo;s already furnished and decorated, all my stuff is basically Extra Stuff that I\u0026rsquo;m struggling to fit anywhere.\nMy books don\u0026rsquo;t fit on the shelves, my clothes don\u0026rsquo;t fit on the racks, my guitars don\u0026rsquo;t fit in the corner, and finding somewhere appropriate to display my special beer glass collection is a hopeless luxury.\nBeing confronted with such constrains has got me thinking about how much Stuff I own in general. My footprint is probably relatively small compared to most of the people I interact with regularly. But when I think about much of the world, whose Stuff could be wrapped in a blanket and slung over a shoulder\u0026hellip; well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot. And let me tell you, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to be mobile with 2 large bookcases full of books, never mind the ones that got relegated to storage!\nOn the other hand, my situation could be unique even for Americans, given that I probably have more Kinds of Stuff than most people. I\u0026rsquo;m not just into books, but music and film, so there go 5 or 6 boxes just for CDs and DVDs. I\u0026rsquo;m not just into playing musical instruments (adding 5 guitars, a keyboard, and a trumpet to the mix) but into recording, so chalk one box up to computer interfaces and cables, another for mics, and then there\u0026rsquo;s the oddly-shaped mic stands\u0026hellip; And I could keep going\u0026ndash;I have 4 large backpacks filled with all kinds of climbing, backpacking, frisbee and snowboarding gear.\nIn short, if you take away my hobbies, you take away the Stuff. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if this is the case for most people or not. But as I have an abnormally large number of hobbies, so I have this abnormally large number of Kinds of Stuff. And, with the exercise of trying to fit a lot of stuff into a small space as the perfect (perhaps ironic) metaphor, I wonder about how and why I\u0026rsquo;ve decided to cram all these pursuits into the finite space of my life. That\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;d call Metastuff.\nI suppose answering the Metastuff question for me is the same as answering the question of why I\u0026rsquo;ve chosen to pursue many things at once rather than focus on one thing (as most people seem able / resigned to do). It\u0026rsquo;s a question I wrestle with on an intense and daily basis, and it creates a profound ambiguity at the core of who I am which I\u0026rsquo;ve talked about plenty of times before.\nHonestly, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind being put in a situation with my Metastuff that mirrors the one I\u0026rsquo;ve been put into with my Stuff. If life narrowed, I\u0026rsquo;d be forced to discard some Metastuff, forced to come to terms with the fact that not all of it fits. Perhaps such a pruning process would lead to greater fruitfulness! Or perhaps it would just make me depressed. But one thing I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure of: I\u0026rsquo;m not going to do it myself.\nWe talk a lot about how we Americans or Westerners have a disproportionate amount of Stuff. So maybe I\u0026rsquo;m more profoundly Western than I realized, with all this Metastuff. Maybe a superfluity of Metastuff (or Opportunity or Potential or Choice) is relatively new in the West, even. But maybe we should talk more about it, too.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/08/stuff-and-metastuff/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOne thing I\u0026rsquo;ve realized in the recent move up to San Francisco is that I have a lot of Stuff. I don\u0026rsquo;t think I\u0026rsquo;d have noticed if moving into an empty apartment\u0026ndash;all my Stuff only filled 2 cars\u0026ndash;but since I\u0026rsquo;m moving temporarily into a room that\u0026rsquo;s already furnished and decorated, all my stuff is basically Extra Stuff that I\u0026rsquo;m struggling to fit anywhere.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy books don\u0026rsquo;t fit on the shelves, my clothes don\u0026rsquo;t fit on the racks, my guitars don\u0026rsquo;t fit in the corner, and finding somewhere appropriate to display my special beer glass collection is a hopeless luxury.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Stuff and Metastuff"},{"content":"During the last week, I was on 9 flights around the country, for various reasons (weddings and visiting my brother). I find that plane rides are a great time and place for personal meditation, and given that I have recently decided to go back to Kenya and spend some more time at Tumaini, I had ample reason for such meditation. I was also listening to a lecture series by Charles Ringma of Regent seminary in Vancouver (which I should blog about soon, as it\u0026rsquo;s been the most impactful lecture series for me in the last few years). A concept from those lectures stuck in my head, which I\u0026rsquo;d thought about before but which had become somewhat more real for me recently. That was the concept of downward mobility.\nMost people I talk to in my generation seem to recognize responsibility we have to change the world for good in some way. There are a few, of course, who in full awareness decide to seek only self-aggrandizement, money, power, and a life of self-gratification. But for the most part, it has become somewhat popular to think about the world\u0026rsquo;s problems and how they might be solved or ameliorated. It seems to me that there are two broad ways we can go about this problem: the way most of us tend to do it, and the way Jesus did it.\nMost of us, including myself, tend to go about the problem with this train of thought: (1) The world\u0026rsquo;s problems are bigger than me as an individual. (2) Therefore, if I want to do something about it, I need to get in a place where my individuality counts for more than it does now, as a young post-college person. In other words, I need to get into some position where my desire to help the world can actually command more resources than those already at my command. (3) Getting into those positions, whether in politics or business or large non-profits, will take a long time of working within these various systems, but there aren\u0026rsquo;t really any other options.\nAnd so, we try to move \u0026ldquo;upwards\u0026rdquo;, into the upper echelons of society or a global business community, or the US government, thinking, \u0026ldquo;when I arrive at a position of power, then I will be able to use my authority to effect dramatic change\u0026rdquo;. This kind of thinking makes sense, especially from the modernist, Western perspective where change is implemented \u0026ldquo;top-down\u0026rdquo;, from those with more power to those with less. In fact, it seems so obviously the way to go about solving problems that it has been a weight of responsibility to me personally, as someone who has (for reasons unrelated to my personal decisions) at least some opportunities to move \u0026ldquo;upward\u0026rdquo;. My web development business is doing well, and it\u0026rsquo;s at least possible that I could follow it up, into more money and strategic places in Silicon Valley. Or, (I flatter myself that) I could go get a PhD and become a respected authority on questions philosophical or theological, maybe even becoming the CS Lewis of our generation, affecting thinkers by the score! Whether or not those possibilities are probable doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter\u0026ndash;the fact that they are there at all has made me ask whether I don\u0026rsquo;t have a responsibility to grab hold of those opportunities to effect \u0026ldquo;top-down\u0026rdquo; change on a large scale. All my friends with talents in the political arena are faced even more acutely with this question.\nBut at the same time, if we call ourselves Christians, and believe (as I do) that somehow Jesus effected the best kind of change possible for the world, and indeed is calling us to do the same, we are confronted with this:\n\u0026ldquo;Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death\u0026ndash;even death on a cross!\u0026rdquo;\nSo, the man who, if we believe the Scriptures, had the most potential authority of anyone that has ever walked the earth, intentionally chose not to exercise that authority. His strategy for change seems to have been, somewhat stupidly from our perspective, to become the least of women and men, serving them rather than ruling them. God, in other words, chose not to be God, but to be a creature, to be like humans. His answer to the problems of the world was not to \u0026ldquo;fix\u0026rdquo; them from on high, as he supposedly had the ability to do, but to live in the problems along with those affected by them.\nJesus\u0026rsquo; choice frustrates me, because it seems inefficient. I can even imagine his friends and family, when he chose to leave his profession of carpentry, accusing him of stupidity for leaving behind a growing business. We might imagine that he was even the best carpenter in the region, with a clear \u0026ldquo;upward\u0026rdquo; path to greater power and influence in that arena. But without a second glance, he left behind that path, and chose a \u0026ldquo;downward\u0026rdquo; path instead\u0026ndash;wandering the wilds with a group of men and women, staying at sympathizers\u0026rsquo; homes, hanging out with the unintelligent and socially ostracized, and literally as well as symbolically emptying himself for these unworthy recipients. I can very clearly imagine those who knew him since the days of his sitting at the temple and conversing with the rabbis as an equal, looking at his last few years, shaking their heads, and sighing, \u0026ldquo;He had so much promise.\u0026rdquo;\nAnd I wonder, in a fearful sort of way, is that how I\u0026rsquo;m supposed to be? Never mind the theological reasons for it, but\u0026hellip; could I handle my friends and family thinking that I\u0026rsquo;d left behind a promising \u0026ldquo;upward\u0026rdquo; path for a less efficient \u0026ldquo;downward\u0026rdquo; one? So much of my identity has been wrapped up in that \u0026ldquo;promise\u0026rdquo;, in my potential for \u0026ldquo;great\u0026rdquo; things from the perspective of our culture. Could I give that up?\nI\u0026rsquo;m not exactly sure, but I have felt that tension coming into play as I\u0026rsquo;ve wrestled with going back to Kenya. With quite a few \u0026ldquo;promising\u0026rdquo; options on the table here in Silicon Valley, it\u0026rsquo;s been difficult to think of selling my car, going back to the orphanage for a few months, and letting those opportunities die. Less because I want them for themselves (I could never see a computer again and be very happy), but rather because I still feel this sense of obligation to pursue \u0026ldquo;upward\u0026rdquo; paths in the hope that they will provide the power and resources necessary for the kind of change I want to see in the world. The idea of hanging out with some AIDS orphans for 6 months seems \u0026ldquo;good\u0026rdquo;, but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily seem like the most effective or efficient service I could perform with my various skills. Maybe I should instead join with a large non-profit organization that has many more resources!\nBut every time I read that passage from Philippians, I\u0026rsquo;m struck with the alien nature of Jesus\u0026rsquo; intentional involvement with pain and suffering. It is so, so different from the way that I naturally think about how to deal with those problems that it draws me in, magnetized. It seems like there\u0026rsquo;s no way it can work! And yet through his laying down of all power and authority came the most miraculous sequence of events in human history. And so I think, what would happen if we turned our idea of social change upside down? What if all the brightest and most possibly-influential people of our age decided, instead of pursuing an \u0026ldquo;upwardly mobile\u0026rdquo; philosophy of change, to forget such dreams and hang out with the dejected and downtrodden of our world, becoming in truth one of them?\nWe\u0026rsquo;d certainly lose a lot of \u0026ldquo;progress\u0026rdquo; momentum. We might not have new, cool Apple computers. We might even revert to a previous technological age. It might be absolutely horrible according to our standards, which value efficiency and capitalism above all else! But\u0026hellip; in return, we might get peace, justice, unity, love. At least, that is what came of Jesus\u0026rsquo; unique response to the problems we face in our world. And it\u0026rsquo;s certainly true that as much as we\u0026rsquo;ve tried other ways to solve them, we haven\u0026rsquo;t even come close. Maybe, just maybe, we should think more about this strange idea of \u0026ldquo;downward mobility\u0026rdquo;, since, against all intuition, it seems to have been the path that God himself chose.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/08/downward-mobility/","summary":"During the last week, I was on 9 flights around the country, for various reasons (weddings and visiting my brother). I find that plane rides are a great time and place for personal meditation, and given that I have recently decided to go back to Kenya and spend some more time at Tumaini, I had ample reason for such meditation. I was also listening to a lecture series by Charles Ringma of Regent seminary in Vancouver (which I should blog about soon, as it\u0026rsquo;s been the most impactful lecture series for me in the last few years). A concept from those lectures stuck in my head, which I\u0026rsquo;d thought about before but which had become somewhat more real for me recently. That was the concept of downward mobility.","title":"Downward Mobility"},{"content":"A little while ago I linked to my Facebook applications, but that\u0026rsquo;s not the end of the story. My friend Justin and I have been keeping a blog on all things Facebook, particularly the new Platform I mentioned which has allowed third-party app development. We\u0026rsquo;ve gotten some pretty good traffic, and you should check it out:\nInside Facebook ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/08/inside-facebook/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA little while ago I linked to my \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/588\"\u003eFacebook applications\u003c/a\u003e, but that\u0026rsquo;s not the end of the story. My friend \u003ca href=\"http://just.in\"\u003eJustin\u003c/a\u003e and I have been keeping a blog on all things Facebook, particularly the new Platform I mentioned which has allowed third-party app development. We\u0026rsquo;ve gotten some pretty good traffic, and you should check it out:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://insidefacebook.com\"\u003eInside Facebook\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Inside Facebook"},{"content":"One of the reasons I\u0026rsquo;ve been forced to maintain blog silence recently is that I\u0026rsquo;ve been spending a lot of my free time working on several Facebook apps. As most people around the web now seem to have heard, Facebook has recently opened up their social networking site to allow third-party developers (like myself) to create little widgets for people to add to their profiles.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve so far created a suite of 4 of these mini applications, which allow Facebook users to show off what they\u0026rsquo;re reading (or listening to, or watching, or playing) and interact with friends in each of those spheres. The apps are called Books, CDs, Video Games, and DVDs, respectively. It would be great if you checked these out and added them to your profile! With close to 35,000 total users so far, it\u0026rsquo;s possible for me to run a small business based on the apps, which would be fun. I\u0026rsquo;d love your help.\nJust for fun, here\u0026rsquo;s a screenshot of some Books functionality:\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/07/books-et-al-on-facebook/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the reasons I\u0026rsquo;ve been forced to maintain blog silence recently is that I\u0026rsquo;ve been spending a lot of my free time working on several Facebook apps. As most people around the web now seem to have heard, \u003ca href=\"http://facebook.com\"\u003eFacebook\u003c/a\u003e has recently opened up their social networking site to allow third-party developers (like myself) to create little widgets for people to add to their profiles.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;ve so far created a suite of 4 of these mini applications, which allow Facebook users to show off what they\u0026rsquo;re reading (or listening to, or watching, or playing) and interact with friends in each of those spheres. The apps are called \u003ca href=\"http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2392094817\"\u003eBooks\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://stanford.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2419261583\"\u003eCDs\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2419899392\"\u003eVideo Games\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://stanford.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2405243576\"\u003eDVDs\u003c/a\u003e, respectively. It would be great if you checked these out and added them to your profile! With close to 35,000 total users so far, it\u0026rsquo;s possible for me to run a small business based on the apps, which would be fun. I\u0026rsquo;d love your help.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Books et al., on Facebook"},{"content":"I haven\u0026rsquo;t come out of blog hiding in a very long time, it seems. I have many, many things to share. And many things that are just past sharing.\nBut this deserves special notice: Today, we at HopeRuns (the non-profit the friends of mine started in Kenya while I was there) released a brand new website, which I designed! I think it turned out pretty well, but take a look yourself, and check things out:\nhoperuns.org Gratuitous screenshot:\nOh, something else deserves special notice: it\u0026rsquo;s my 100th blog on Teleios! Decidedly not that many for almost 2 years, but whatever. Still, a lot has been written\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/06/hoperunsorg/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI haven\u0026rsquo;t come out of blog hiding in a very long time, it seems. I have many, many things to share. And many things that are just past sharing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut this deserves special notice: Today, we at HopeRuns (the non-profit the friends of mine started in Kenya while I was there) released a brand new website, which I designed! I think it turned out pretty well, but take a look yourself, and check things out:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"HopeRuns.org"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s 3am in Orlando, and my brother David and I are getting in the car to drive it cross-country. We\u0026rsquo;re blasting a trail across in order to transport my parents\u0026rsquo; vehicle and things to the new place in San Francisco. Before I go, I wanted to post some links to pictures from the last 5 months! They\u0026rsquo;re unedited, but enjoyable nonetheless, I hope.\nIn each case, simply click on the picture to access the photo set!\nOn tour with the New Frontiers (Dec 26 - Jan 12)\nSchloss Mittersill, Austria (Jan 16 - Mar 4)\nOxford, UK (Mar 4 - Mar 8)\nTumaini Children\u0026rsquo;s Center, Nyeri, Kenya (Mar 8 - May 1)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/05/sabbatical-photos/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s 3am in Orlando, and my brother David and I are getting in the car to drive it cross-country. We\u0026rsquo;re blasting a trail across in order to transport my parents\u0026rsquo; vehicle and things to the new place in San Francisco. Before I go, I wanted to post some links to pictures from the last 5 months! They\u0026rsquo;re unedited, but enjoyable nonetheless, I hope.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn each case, simply click on the picture to access the photo set!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sabbatical Photos"},{"content":" Four and a half months after I stopped work and planned to engage in a sabbatical of sorts, I\u0026rsquo;m back. I flew in from Kenya a day ago, and am now in Orlando as I prepare to help my parents move cross-country to San Francisco.\nIn many ways, I\u0026rsquo;m still recovering from Kenya, and cannot yet distill that complex and amazing experience into a weblog entry. In the coming days, I hope to write a thematic series of articles on the various aspects of my time there, which might be a better way of doing justice to it. For now, it\u0026rsquo;s just hard to adjust to life in the US, and life away from my friends old and new at Tumaini.\nI certainly have a lot to think about and process. Between 3 weeks of touring with the New Frontiers, spending 6 weeks at Schloss Mittersill in Austria, and now living 8 weeks in rural Kenya, I\u0026rsquo;ve had a number of new experiences, and noticed a lot of things about the world and myself which call for introspection, integration, and response.\nAs I look forward to my future both near and far, I find that I\u0026rsquo;m more confused about what I can and should do, not less! In that sense, the sabbatical did not live up to my hopes! But I\u0026rsquo;m beginning to see that this place is probably right where I should be, despite my desires for easy clarity. I think God and other people gave me so many unlooked-for gifts during this time away, albeit sometimes through hard circumstances, so it has been a slow process of gaining the eyes to see their goodness! I\u0026rsquo;m sure that process will continue in the next weeks and months.\nNow, I must focus on re-inserting myself into the matrix of life here, finding work, and pondering next steps. There\u0026rsquo;s an exciting freedom in not knowing where I will be in a year, let alone two months! But I hope that the right path, if there is such a thing, will present itself to me in enough time to follow it. It usually does, I guess.\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s all for now\u0026ndash;please stay tuned for the Kenya series, pictures, and other announcements during the next few weeks!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/05/sabbaticals-end/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/sabbatical_end.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFour and a half months after I stopped work and planned to engage in a sabbatical of sorts, I\u0026rsquo;m back. I flew in from Kenya a day ago, and am now in Orlando as I prepare to help my parents move cross-country to San Francisco.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn many ways, I\u0026rsquo;m still recovering from Kenya, and cannot yet distill that complex and amazing experience into a weblog entry. In the coming days, I hope to write a thematic series of articles on the various aspects of my time there, which might be a better way of doing justice to it. For now, it\u0026rsquo;s just hard to adjust to life in the US, and life away from my friends old and new at Tumaini.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sabbatical's End"},{"content":" A few weeks ago, Claire and Lara (and therefore me by some kind of implication, I hope) started a weblog with the kids here at Tumaini (the orphanage where I\u0026rsquo;m \u0026ldquo;volunteering\u0026rdquo; in Kenya). I haven\u0026rsquo;t personally had time to give a decent entry on Kenya or Tumaini itself, which is an amazing place, and full of amazing kids. So I\u0026rsquo;m happy to be able to point you to their weblog, to get some idea of the craziness that goes on here!\nTumaini Kids Weblog\nAs a note of celebration, Claire and Lara just found out that the blog has been given Blogspot\u0026rsquo;s Blog of Note award! We\u0026rsquo;re hoping the guaranteed publicity that comes along with the high-profile link will lead to greater support for the kids here. I\u0026rsquo;d love for you to check out the weblog, read some of the (alternately hilarious and heart-breaking) entries, and leave comments for the kids (who are understandably amazed that people from the US would care to talk to them).\nI leave Kenya for the States in just about a week; some retrospective articles are forthcoming, though they will probably wait till I\u0026rsquo;m back in the \u0026ldquo;developed\u0026rdquo; world!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/04/tumaini-kids-weblog/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/tumaini_kids.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA few weeks ago, Claire and Lara (and therefore me by some kind of implication, I hope) started a weblog with the kids here at Tumaini (the orphanage where I\u0026rsquo;m \u0026ldquo;volunteering\u0026rdquo; in Kenya). I haven\u0026rsquo;t personally had time to give a decent entry on Kenya or Tumaini itself, which is an amazing place, and full of amazing kids. So I\u0026rsquo;m happy to be able to point you to their weblog, to get some idea of the craziness that goes on here!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tumaini Kids Weblog"},{"content":"Unfortunately, this is not a real entry. It is just a small note to say that I have finally joined the Twitter bandwagon. There is only one way to join a bandwagon, and that is with gusto! So while I have not had time to write a good report on Kenya yet, I have been doing some small Twitter updates.\nYou can see my updates and sign up to follow them at http://twitter.com/jlipps!\nBasically, Twitter is a micro-blogging service using the web, mobile phones, and IM as equal media. People write short (usually less than 140 characters) updates, which are then sent immediately to interested parties (your group of friends, for example) via whichever communication channel they desire. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure how useful it is, but given the mobile slant, it\u0026rsquo;s an interesting experiment in instant/anywhere publication. Check it out, and see for yourself.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/04/twitter/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eUnfortunately, this is not a real entry. It is just a small note to say that I have finally joined the \u003ca href=\"http://www.twitter.com\"\u003eTwitter\u003c/a\u003e bandwagon. There is only one way to join a bandwagon, and that is with gusto! So while I have not had time to write a good report on Kenya yet, I have been doing some small Twitter updates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou can see my updates and sign up to follow them at \u003ca href=\"http://twitter.com/jlipps\"\u003ehttp://twitter.com/jlipps\u003c/a\u003e!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Twitter"},{"content":" It is the Quiet Saturday before Easter Sunday, when thousands of years ago the universe held its breath, awaiting the vindication of God for the as-yet-unveiled Messiah, Jesus. That vindication came in the most unexpected form\u0026ndash;the resurrection of the dead! Long looked-for, but almost overlooked when it did come, Jesus became the firstfruits of that most remarkable of events, the completion of which we still eagerly desire.\nI am writing at the Tumaini orphanage, near Nyeri, Kenya (where I have extended my stay an additional 5 weeks). From where I am sitting, I can see no end of reasons why we should continue to eagerly await that desire. It is the one fundamental hope that undergirds every other, because it is the hope which defeats the oldest and hardest of all despairs, which is Death itself. I have a lot of reasons (or so I think) to despair at the moment, and when I look at the children who surround me, I know that they have many more and legitimate ones\u0026ndash;some have reason to despair even of life, which I know nothing about.\nBut there is one hope, that the one thing which is the most wrong with the universe can be righted. More to the point, it has been, if we have eyes to see. The fact that people still die is now the illusion, the lie struggling to prevail against the coming truth, which is already true, but which will shine forth in infinite clarity at some time yet to come.\nAnd, as every despair, no matter how small, really derives its life in some way from Death, so the key to every hope, no matter how small, can be found in this one hope of life regained, and made indestructible. Though I have no other hope to cling to, yet this one hope will prove to be my salvation! And this is true, not just for those like me who have never tasted the true Sickness Unto Death, but also for those who have. It is the one firm rock on which to build my relationship towards the universe\u0026ndash;the cornerstone which the builders have rejected, but which has, in time and in its turn, become the capstone.\nThis year, I have not appropriately contemplated all that I could contemplate during Holy Week, nor have I appropriately prepared myself to experience another Easter in the fullest way. However, I am certainly in a place to appreciate and long for the unique comfort which is the hope of the resurrection of the dead (and it is the telltale signs of that future resurrection in Jesus\u0026rsquo; own resurrection which we celebrate tomorrow). I believe the renewal and serious appreciation of this hope is just what Easter celebration is all about.\n\u0026ldquo;Tumaini\u0026rdquo; means \u0026ldquo;hope\u0026rdquo; in Swahili.\n---\nIn past years, I have traditionally created some piece of art on Easter to commemorate the day (for instance, the two monologues I wrote for Easter 2003 ). I do not know if such will happen tomorrow, but at any rate think that in view of what the hope of Easter really is, nothing can be for me a more appropriate offering than the Suite Apocalyptique I posted in a recent entry (click here to read about and download it), given that its central theme is exactly this one of resurrection hope. Perhaps it will be of benefit to you in your Easter worship!\nSo, Happy Easter! Christ is risen indeed!\nI will leave you with a poem, the lyrics to one of the songs in the Suite ( Mvmt VI: The Sun Rises):\nI breathe at last, the work is done Like shining glass, sea and sun Are sharp and real, bright blades of love Which grew to heal the wounds of Night is over now Night is over now The sun is coming up But don’t turn away from the flames These brilliant rays annul our shame The fire burns, but we stand For which we yearn is in our hands When we touch the earth, it sings rejoicing For the day has dawned, and we have returned To ourselves as we were meant to be To the world as it has longed to be I breathe at last, the work is done The shadow passed, and life begun ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/04/easter-reflections-from-kenya/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/easter2007.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is the Quiet Saturday before Easter Sunday, when thousands of years ago the universe held its breath, awaiting the vindication of God for the as-yet-unveiled Messiah, Jesus. That vindication came in the most unexpected form\u0026ndash;the resurrection of the dead! Long looked-for, but almost overlooked when it did come, Jesus became the firstfruits of that most remarkable of events, the completion of which we still eagerly desire.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI am writing at the Tumaini orphanage, near Nyeri, Kenya (where I have extended my stay an additional 5 weeks). From where I am sitting, I can see no end of reasons why we should \u003cem\u003econtinue\u003c/em\u003e to eagerly await that desire. It is the one fundamental hope that undergirds every other, because it is the hope which defeats the oldest and hardest of all despairs, which is Death itself. I have a lot of reasons (or so I think) to despair at the moment, and when I look at the children who surround me, I know that they have many more and legitimate ones\u0026ndash;some have reason to despair even of life, which I know nothing about.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Easter Reflections From Kenya"},{"content":"I have some great Splendour Hyaline news to share! First of all, Paste magazine (my favorite music magazine) has run a short \u0026ldquo;review\u0026rdquo; of our new EP, Hope (A Sliver, Like the Moon), in their March edition (with the Norah Jones cover).\nThis is a first for David and me, and we\u0026rsquo;re super excited about it\u0026ndash;as it turns out, the review is (in my opinion) overwhelmingly positive! Please go and support Paste by picking up a copy (they should be at places like Barnes \u0026amp; Noble, etc\u0026hellip;). Our review is, I\u0026rsquo;m told, on page 69, right underneath Bright Eyes!\nSecond, if you\u0026rsquo;re interested in purchasing Hope\u0026hellip;, it is now available for sale on iTunes! We have pressed CDs as well, but as I\u0026rsquo;m out of the country for a while, iTunes is an excellent way to get your hands on a copy now. You can preview tracks in iTunes, or listen to full-length tracks at Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s myspace. If you decide you\u0026rsquo;d like to purchase the album, simply click the link below. Thanks for your support! If you do buy the album, I\u0026rsquo;d really appreciate it if you also wrote an honest review on iTunes, describing your reaction to the music. Having a lot of reviews helps us out when people are browsing music!\nCheck out Hope (A Sliver, Like the Moon) on iTunes!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/03/splendour-hyaline-in-paste-magazine-album-on-itunes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have some great \u003ca href=\"http://www.myspace.com/splendourhyaline\"\u003eSplendour Hyaline\u003c/a\u003e news to share! First of all, \u003ca href=\"http://www.pastemagazine.com\"\u003ePaste magazine\u003c/a\u003e (my favorite music magazine) has run a short \u0026ldquo;review\u0026rdquo; of our new EP, \u003cem\u003eHope (A Sliver, Like the Moon)\u003c/em\u003e, in their March edition (with the Norah Jones cover).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/paste_norah.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a first for David and me, and we\u0026rsquo;re super excited about it\u0026ndash;as it turns out, the review is (in my opinion) overwhelmingly positive! Please go and support Paste by picking up a copy (they should be at places like Barnes \u0026amp; Noble, etc\u0026hellip;). Our review is, I\u0026rsquo;m told, on page 69, right underneath Bright Eyes!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Splendour Hyaline in Paste Magazine; Album on iTunes"},{"content":"When I last wrote about the sabbatical which is underway (read part 1 here), I was in the middle of my time at Schloss Mitersill, in Austria. That time has now ended! I\u0026rsquo;m currently writing at a hostel in Oxford, and tomorrow I\u0026rsquo;ll be catching a flight to Nairobi, before heading to Nyeri, Kenya. I\u0026rsquo;m very happy to report that my time at the Schloss finished well. This, of course, means that I\u0026rsquo;m certainly sad to see it end. But before I talk more about that, here are some pictures of the Schloss and the gorgeous surrounding area:\nThe side of the castle and Mittersill far below\nLooking down into Mittersill at night\nOne of many beautiful sunsets looking from the Schloss deck\nThe courtyard through a window\nThe chapel and mountains beyond\nA lonely path I took one day\nSnowing on the castle at night\nThe bottom of Krimml waterfall\nThere are two things that primarily defined the latter half of my time in Austria. First of all, I had the opportunity to have a 3-day, intensive, guided retreat of solitude and fasting. The significance of this time for me deserves its own entry, and I wish I had the time to expound on what happened in my heart over even that short period. In sum, God showed me his love in a new way, almost without the intermediation of my (ever-striving) intellect. It was an experience with which I was not before familiar, and it made all the questions and frustrations I came into the time with (including my physical trials) seem somewhat unimportant in comparison to that love.\nIn fact, it was that result that stayed with me during my whole time in Austria. Unfortunately, though I continued to pray about many of the issues which caused me to embark on a sabbatical (my arms, etc\u0026hellip;), none of these were resolved. Fortunately, I no longer believed that the resolution of these problems was of paramount importance! What had replaced them? I\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly, but I could describe it as the sustaining love and peace of God. As I said, I would love to expound at length on the process I went through during the solitude, fasting, and meditation, but this summary will have to do for now. I will, however, share a few pictures I took while on a long walk I took during the retreat:\nA floating mountain!\nDramatic picture of an Austrian house\nB/W of a lone farmhouse\nSecondly, I\u0026rsquo;d like to share the results of a project I started and completed while at the Schloss. When I first arrived, I began to play around on one of the few pianos at the castle, and soon formed an idea for a concept album. Miraculously (given how slow I usually write music), I wrote seven full songs. Equally miraculously, I had time before leaving to do a basic recording of the whole project. I\u0026rsquo;ve since done a simple mixing job on them and have put all of them up for download. But first, here are some pictures:\nThe piano set-up, in the Green Room\nI recorded vocals in the chapel, which was, as you\u0026rsquo;d imagine, great for reverb as well as inspiration\nMost often, I had to record vocals at night by the light of my headlamp!\nThe album, called Suite Apocalyptique, is special in a way, since there\u0026rsquo;s one theme that guides both the music and the lyrics. Instead of writing about it here, I\u0026rsquo;ve created a PDF that includes an explanation of the background for the album, as well as all the lyrics. You can download it here - I recommend reading it before listening to the album.\nNow, I would love for you to download and listen to the album! It is compressed into ZIP format (which both Mac and Windows can extract easily), and you can get it here: Suite Apocalyptique. I certainly welcome any comments or feedback! I hope the album might be meaningful to you in some way; certainly I have all of you who are supporting me in this venture to thank directly for this project!\nWell, there\u0026rsquo;s much more to say about my time in Austria, of course. Many paragraphs could be spent telling stories and thanking the Schloss community for its support and friendship to me, and for welcoming me swiftly and warmly to the center of their life together. Perhaps such thoughts will float across the blog in the future!\nNow, I am in Oxford, where I have been for a few days while waiting for my flight to Kenya (logistics created a bit of a time gap, and it made sense to spend it in the UK). I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed wandering the streets and footpaths, visiting my favorite pubs (including the Eagle and Child) and seeing new neighborhoods (like Iffley and Jericho) that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t before. I\u0026rsquo;ll leave you with a few pictures from here:\nA lovely little lane\nChrist Church cathedral\nThank you for reading! In a few short hours I\u0026rsquo;ll be joining Lara (of TrippingOnWords) at Heathrow. Then it\u0026rsquo;s off to Nyeri, Kenya, to the Tumaini orphanage. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly what\u0026rsquo;s in store for me there, but I\u0026rsquo;m sure it will be awesome. I look forward to sharing those experiences at the end of this month, when I return home!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/03/sabbatical-part-2-leaving-austria-suite-apocalyptique/","summary":"When I last wrote about the sabbatical which is underway (read part 1 \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/548\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e), I was in the middle of my time at Schloss Mitersill, in Austria. That time has now ended! I\u0026rsquo;m currently writing at a hostel in Oxford, and tomorrow I\u0026rsquo;ll be catching a flight to Nairobi, before heading to Nyeri, Kenya. I\u0026rsquo;m very happy to report that my time at the Schloss finished well. This, of course, means that I\u0026rsquo;m certainly sad to see it end. But before I talk more about that, here are some pictures of the Schloss and the gorgeous surrounding area:","title":"Sabbatical Part 2: Leaving Austria / Suite Apocalyptique"},{"content":"It has been a while since I last wrote. Much has happened (not least the tour I mentioned in the last entry), indeed too much to adequately share. Many of my friends will have received an ominous e-mail a few months ago entitled \u0026ldquo;Life Update\u0026rdquo;. In that e-mail, I detailed a few of my current struggles, and elaborated a plan to take a bit of a sabbatical from work and life in California.\nA brief summary of the reasons for such a decision: Primarily, my computer-centric lifestyle (both work and play) over the past few years contributed to a gradually worsening set of repetitive stress injuries in my arms and hands, such that when November rolled around, I was experiencing pain at all times, not just when using computers. Conversations with various specialists enlightened me as to the potential long-term damage of exacerbating my condition, and I decided to wrap up my current obligations and take 3-4 months away.\nAnother important factor in my decision was my spiritual life, which for a number of reasons I believed would benefit from a time of listening to God and posing certain questions to him, in an environment different than my normal, Palo Alto one.\nWith help from others, I thought long and hard about how best to pursue a sabbatical for several months, and settled on a 3-part journey. First, I decided to go on tour with my friends The New Frontiers (with whom I went to high school) and Manchester Orchestra. Sadly, this leg of the journey is already complete! For about 3 weeks, I slept on floors and lived in a van with these guys, playing a show almost every night, eating on $5 a day, and generally having an incredible time. The telling of the experiences we had warrants a book, not a weblog entry, so I\u0026rsquo;ll pass on any further detail here. Suffice it to say, I had a genuinely life-changing trip, enjoyed hanging out with my companions, and received many questions to ponder during the subsequent portions of the sabbatical.\nI was able to play a few shows on tour; this is the 585 in Atlanta\nIn the middle of January, I flew back to Florida for just three days, attended a friend\u0026rsquo;s wedding, and packed for the remainder of my journey. Then, I flew to Austria, and made my way to the small town of Mittersill, where I\u0026rsquo;m spending about 6 weeks at a place called Schloss Mittersill (Castle Mittersill). There is a small Christian community living here that lets students or people on sabbatical come to study, think, rest, etc\u0026hellip; It seemed to be an ideal place for me to dig into some of the spiritual questions and issues I had raised, and it has proven to be that so far.\nFor the last few weeks, I\u0026rsquo;ve spent virtually all my time at the Schloss, getting to know the house team, students, and other workers and inhabitants. Without exception these people have been wonderfully inviting, and I found myself welcomed very quickly into the life rhythm of this place. After adjusting to the time and learning how to get from one place in the Schloss to another, I began to meet with a certain couple who are acting as my \u0026ldquo;sabbatical liaisons\u0026rdquo; (really, counselors) during my time here. Since then, I\u0026rsquo;ve been sharing my story with them, and putting together a plan for how best to heal physically and also make use of this time to seek God. I\u0026rsquo;ll probably have, for example, a sort of retreat-within-retreat next week for a couple days, in solitude from the rest of the group here.\nMost of my time, however, has so far been spent in the Schloss library, or hanging out with people by a fire and talking into the evening, or taking advantage of the incredible alpine environment and going for long walks in the snowy hills (I hope to be able to do a bit of snowboarding at nearby Pass Thurn or Kitzbühel if I can find some gear). I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading ferociously, catching up on (what seems like) years of lost time, and studying German, Greek, Hebrew, and Swahili. We\u0026rsquo;ll see how much any of that sticks, but I have been enjoying delving into these pursuits that I rarely have time for. What\u0026rsquo;s more, there\u0026rsquo;s been the opportunity for creative endeavors as well\u0026ndash;they have a few pianos here, so I\u0026rsquo;ve been writing some music, as well as working on a short novel that has been under construction for over a year now.\nA winter scene from one of my walks near the Schloss\nIn short, between the amazing community, the study, nature, and the hilarious attempts to practice yoga in my tiny room (we have my sister to thank for that), the time has been incredibly useful to me already. Now that I have gotten a feel for life here, and had a chance to enjoy many of the academic or creative pursuits I love, I hope to move forward into a time of serious waiting on and listening to God, and hopefully come to some resolutions on the spiritual purposes for this sabbatical, on how I should be spending and directing my energies in the coming months and years, and on who I am as an individual in his Kingdom.\nI also hope to spend even less time on my computer than I have been, thus to be more confident of my physical healing. I will probably, for example, refrain from e-mail as much as possible, though I would certainly rather be talking to you than not!\nWell, so much for an update. I also need to mention that, at the outset of my trip to Austria, I was very fearful that things would not come together financially for these international travels. Obviously, the combination of travel and not working is a bit of an expensive worry. However, it soon became clear that my fears were misplaced! In an amazing display of generosity that left me literally shaken, I was supported by many friends and family, who also, it seems, saw the importance in this move for me. The fact that so many would gather around me in assistance at a time like this, when I truly needed it, is to me an incredible testimony of God\u0026rsquo;s faithfulness through their love. While not everything is taken care of, I have certainly been humbled by this experience, enough to finally heed Jesus\u0026rsquo; words about not worrying about tomorrow\u0026rsquo;s troubles. For now, my focus is on what I am doing and trying to discern God\u0026rsquo;s voice in the middle of it.\nI am sure that the remainder of my time at the Schloss will be excellent. But that only accounts for 2 out of 3 parts of this sabbatical! Looking ahead to part 3, I\u0026rsquo;m going to be leaving Austria for Kenya in early March. There is an orphanage outside of Nairobi a ways that I will be staying at, and volunteering at for about 3 weeks (along with a few friends from Stanford). I can\u0026rsquo;t say much more about this leg as yet, since some details still need to be firmed up. I am certain it will be an amazing time nonetheless, and a completely different experience than the one here in Austria. My hope is that I will be able to be of some service to the children and staff there, however small. We will see; and I\u0026rsquo;ll be certain to write about those experiences later on.\nThat is it for now; I have had a virtually limitless number of ideas for other weblog entries, whether theological or philosophical or poetic or what have you, but in an effort to stay off the keyboard, I\u0026rsquo;ve refrained from writing them down. Alas! Well, goodbye for now, and if you\u0026rsquo;d like to say hello in an e-mail, please don\u0026rsquo;t hesitate; I\u0026rsquo;ll respond as quickly as I can!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2007/01/sabbatical/","summary":"It has been a while since I last wrote. Much has happened (not least the tour I mentioned in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/528\"\u003elast entry\u003c/a\u003e), indeed too much to adequately share. Many of my friends will have received an ominous e-mail a few months ago entitled \u0026ldquo;Life Update\u0026rdquo;. In that e-mail, I detailed a few of my current struggles, and elaborated a plan to take a bit of a sabbatical from work and life in California.","title":"Sabbatical"},{"content":" No time for a huge entry, but I wanted to post some tour dates. I am hanging out with my friends The New Frontiers on their southeast tour with Manchester Orchestra. At some venues I may be able to play some Splendour Hyaline music. Either way, if you\u0026rsquo;re anywhere near these towns on these dates, come and say hello!\nDec 27 2006 - 8:00P - Juanita\u0026rsquo;s - Little Rock, Arkansas Dec 28 2006 - 8:00P - The Hi-Tone - Memphis, Tennessee Dec 29 2006 - 8:00P - 3rd \u0026amp; Lindsley - Nashville, Tennessee Dec 30 2006 - 8:00P - The Brothers Pizza - Owensboro, Kentucky Jan 1 2007 - 8:00P - The Village Tavern - Charleston, SouthCarolina Jan 2 2007 - 8:00P - New Brookland Tavern - West Columbia, SouthCarolina Jan 3 2007 - 8:00P - Tasty World - Athens, Georgia Jan 4 2007 - 7:00P - The Sound - Ft. WaltonBeach, Florida Jan 5 2007 - 8:00P - The Venue - Pensacola, Florida Jan 6 2007 - 8:00P - The 585 Club - Atlanta, Georgia Jan 7 2007 - 8:00P - The Rave Arcade - Florence, Alabama Jan 8 2007 - 8:00P - Hal \u0026amp; Mal\u0026rsquo;s - Jackson, Mississippi Jan 9 2007 - 8:00P - Flannagan\u0026rsquo;s - Shreveport, Louisiana Jan 10 2007 - 8:00P - Rikenjack\u0026rsquo;s Brew - PubLakeCharles, Louisiana Jan 11 2007 - 8:00P - Red Seven - Austin, Texas Jan 12 2007 - 8:00P - Sons of Hermann Hall - Dallas, Texas Also, Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s new album, Hope (A Sliver, Like the Moon) (cover pictured above) has been released and it will be for sale on tour. It will be for sale later via the internet (including iTunes).\nA long blog entry is overdue\u0026ndash;some big news for the next couple months (which most of you all have probably heard anyway), but we\u0026rsquo;re getting ready to drive to Little Rock for the first show. Cheers!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/12/splendour-hyaline-on-tour-now-new-album/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/img/hope_small.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo time for a huge entry, but I wanted to post some tour dates. I am hanging out with my friends \u003ca href=\"http://www.myspace.com/thenewfrontiers\"\u003eThe New Frontiers\u003c/a\u003e on their southeast tour with Manchester Orchestra. At some venues I may be able to play some Splendour Hyaline music. Either way, if you\u0026rsquo;re anywhere near these towns on these dates, come and say hello!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDec 27 2006 - 8:00P - Juanita\u0026rsquo;s - Little Rock, Arkansas\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDec 28 2006 - 8:00P - The Hi-Tone - Memphis, Tennessee\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDec 29 2006 - 8:00P - 3rd \u0026amp; Lindsley - Nashville, Tennessee\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDec 30 2006 - 8:00P - The Brothers Pizza - Owensboro, Kentucky\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 1 2007 - 8:00P - The Village Tavern - Charleston, SouthCarolina\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 2 2007 - 8:00P - New Brookland Tavern - West Columbia, SouthCarolina\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 3 2007 - 8:00P - Tasty World - Athens, Georgia\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 4 2007 - 7:00P - The Sound - Ft. WaltonBeach, Florida\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 5 2007 - 8:00P - The Venue - Pensacola, Florida\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 6 2007 - 8:00P - The 585 Club - Atlanta, Georgia\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 7 2007 - 8:00P - The Rave Arcade - Florence, Alabama\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 8 2007 - 8:00P - Hal \u0026amp; Mal\u0026rsquo;s - Jackson, Mississippi\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 9 2007 - 8:00P - Flannagan\u0026rsquo;s - Shreveport, Louisiana\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 10 2007 - 8:00P - Rikenjack\u0026rsquo;s Brew - PubLakeCharles, Louisiana\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 11 2007 - 8:00P - Red Seven - Austin, Texas\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJan 12 2007 - 8:00P - Sons of Hermann Hall - Dallas, Texas\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlso, Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s new album, \u003cem\u003eHope (A Sliver, Like the Moon)\u003c/em\u003e (cover pictured above) has been released and it will be for sale on tour. It will be for sale later via the internet (including iTunes).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Splendour Hyaline on Tour Now; New Album"},{"content":"Happy Christmas Eve!\nAt this time of year, the blog is usually full of ruminations on the birth of Christ (like this entry) or self-pity wallowings (like this rather plaintive entry or this poem from last year). But right now I have neither the time nor energy to be deeply profound nor (believe it or not) deeply self-centered.\nSo I thought I\u0026rsquo;d share, as rather paltry gifts, a few links to things I\u0026rsquo;ve loved recently; you may find them interesting!\nFirst, for anyone who like me has been completely annoyed by (what I am calling) the \u0026ldquo;Dawkins Meme\u0026rdquo; of recent months, I want to give this article\u0026ndash;a review of Dawkins\u0026rsquo; new book by Terry Eagleton (who\u0026rsquo;s not, I don\u0026rsquo;t think, a Christian). The problem with Dawkins is not that he\u0026rsquo;s wrong\u0026ndash;if we were to quantify beliefs, I\u0026rsquo;d probably agree with more of his than your average fundamentalist Christian\u0026ndash;though certainly some basic ones differ. The problem is, as Eagleton says, his unwillingness to see surfacely-nuanced differences in \u0026ldquo;religious\u0026rdquo; systems that actually have huge under-the-hood ramifications.\nSecond, to all and sundry, I want to gift two podcasts done by St Paul\u0026rsquo;s Theological Centre in London, which happen to be interviews with NT Wright. The first podcast is on gnosticism, and the second podcast is on, among other things, \u0026ldquo;apocalypse\u0026rdquo;. I would go so far as to make the second one mandatory listening for any thoughtful Christian; it\u0026rsquo;s that good.\nI have to admit, of course, that I\u0026rsquo;m drinking the NT Wright Kool-Aid at the moment. I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading his Christian Origins and the Question of God series, and am almost done with the second (long) volume, on Jesus. It\u0026rsquo;s been one of the most groundbreaking works I\u0026rsquo;ve read in a while. Last year I read some Kierkegaard and reflected that he had done more than anyone to re-affirm my love of Scripture as something worth remaining conversant with. Now, I\u0026rsquo;d say the same thing about NT Wright; I feel that I\u0026rsquo;ve been given a whole new (and better) way of reading the gospels (and much of the Old Testament). It seems as though I was dealing with something two-dimensional, and now the text has sprung to life amidst a vibrant and colorful context. My exegeses of almost every parable and saying of Jesus have been subtly, if not fundamentally, alered, and many things now just make sense that were opaque before.\nThis isn\u0026rsquo;t to say that Wright is correct on all his points (though as a novice in historical studies it\u0026rsquo;s hard for me to launch a critique), but rather that the overall story he is weaving answers, it seems, more questions than any other view I\u0026rsquo;ve come across. It has the result, of course, of turning much conventional \u0026ldquo;Christian\u0026rdquo; (particularly western fundamentalist) wisdom on its head\u0026ndash;a result I\u0026rsquo;m amenable to in any case. So, if you are a Christian who cares about the content of your beliefs and whether or not they make sense, read these books.\nThird and finally, I have a gift for lovers of language learning. I recently discovered that the iTunes music store has many language-learning podcasts available for free download. I found one for German that has 100 lessons, each ~15 minutes long. That\u0026rsquo;s essentially a 25-hour language course, free! I discovered these podcasts from a very helpful list of language-learning podcasts. From what it looks like, iTunes has a lot more that didn\u0026rsquo;t make this list, so I\u0026rsquo;m sure further exploration would be fruitful.\nSo again, I wish all of you a very happy Christmas, focused indeed on reflection on the having-already-come of the Messiah, and the having-already-been-inaugurated of the Kingdom of God. I leave you, therefore, with this excerpt from an article by CS Lewis (one that my family reads every Christmas Eve), which pretty much sums up my feelings about this time of year:\nBut I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, \u0026ldquo;It is not lawful, O stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.\u0026rdquo; And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, \u0026ldquo;It is, O Stranger, a racket\u0026rdquo;; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).\nBut what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/12/im-dreaming-of-a-blog-christmas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHappy Christmas Eve!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt this time of year, the blog is usually full of ruminations on the birth of Christ (like \u003ca href=\"/2002/12/the-one-king/\"\u003ethis entry\u003c/a\u003e) or self-pity wallowings (like \u003ca href=\"/2003/12/years-end/\"\u003ethis rather plaintive entry\u003c/a\u003e or \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/170\"\u003ethis poem from last year\u003c/a\u003e). But right now I have neither the time nor energy to be deeply profound nor (believe it or not) deeply self-centered.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo I thought I\u0026rsquo;d share, as rather paltry gifts, a few links to things I\u0026rsquo;ve loved recently; you may find them interesting!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"I'm Dreaming of a Blog Christmas"},{"content":"Now that we are in December, and are therefore allowed to start thinking about Christmas (whereas consumer hegemony would have us believe that time was three weeks ago), I am very pleased to present Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s 2006 Christmas EP, Holy Night:\nWe Three Kings of Orient Are Hark! The Herald Angels Sing O Holy Night (To download the album, right-click the above links and choose the option to download the files to your computer.)\nDavid and I hope that these songs can accompany your 2006 Christmas season, as our previous Christmas EP did last year; if you have not downloaded those songs, you can get them here. Unfortunately, we had a very limited amount of time in which to record the three songs above (very few takes each), so the performance quality on my part is less than superb. (In addition, I just realized I didn\u0026rsquo;t catch an error in the lyrics of \u0026ldquo;O Holy Night\u0026rdquo;. Oh well.) Equally unfortunately, neither David nor Rachel were able to add their talents to the mix. David did, however, produce, mix, engineer, and master the whole album, which is happily noticeable.\nThat being said, I think things sound great on the whole, and am excited especially about a few classical guitar interludes in the songs. So, please download and enjoy them and, as always, listen with headphones!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/12/holy-night-by-splendour-hyaline/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eNow that we are in December, and are therefore allowed to start thinking about Christmas (whereas consumer hegemony would have us believe that time was three weeks ago), I am very pleased to present Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s 2006 Christmas EP, \u003cem\u003eHoly Night\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/holynight.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/songs/holynight_1.mp3\"\u003eWe Three Kings of Orient Are\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/songs/holynight_2.mp3\"\u003eHark! The Herald Angels Sing\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/songs/holynight_3.mp3\"\u003eO Holy Night\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(To download the album, right-click the above links and choose the option to download the files to your computer.)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Holy Night by Splendour Hyaline"},{"content":"I am at home in Orlando right now, to be with family and relax during the Thanksgiving holidays. Another stated goal of this time is to avoid using the computer as much as possible so I can begin healing from my RSI\u0026rsquo;s. As you can tell from the mere fact of my blogging, such is more difficult for me than it sounds. In fact, I\u0026rsquo;ve begun to see computer avoidance as a discipline I should practice for spiritual as well as physical reasons.\nAt any rate, it is good to be home. One of the tasks my mother has set me for my time here is to go through all my old boxes of saved school projects, mementos, love letters, etc., and to vaguely scrapbook them. (For me, \u0026ldquo;scrapbooking\u0026rdquo; involves putting things into a binder).\nA few days ago I went through the oldest of these boxes, from first through eighth grade. I was surprised by what a profoundly emotional time it was. Things I thought I\u0026rsquo;d forgotten forever came back clearly, and I was able to re-enter my mind as a small child. Though of course many things have changed since then (and many childish innocences lost), a definite core of personality has stayed surprisingly constant, from hobbies to dreams to fantasies to writing style. I had a fantastic time reading through the first stories I wrote in second and third grade, and many of them were hilariously non-sensical in a way that only children\u0026rsquo;s stories are.\nIn fact, I hope to start a series on this blog where I put up some of these old masterpieces for the comedic enjoyment of the general public. For starters, here is what was probably my first acrostic poem (from the beginning of 2nd grade); guess which movie I was obsessed with at the time:\nMunches fast Our lives saved by him Never afraid Goes very fast Our best fighting machine One good friend So good at fighting Even good for a pet Jonathan Lipps Anyway, I discovered that in elementary school basically all that was on my mind was space, dinosaurs, mongooses, fighter jets, and ancient egyptian mummies. Why did things have to get more complicated?\nNostalgia is certainly a theme of the trip so far. In trying to avoid computers, not being able to do much physical exercise either (I\u0026rsquo;m definitely falling apart), and moreover not having friends to hang out with, my options have been to read or watch TV. I can only read so much academic history, and TV makes me feel dirty, so I have resorted to an old childhood standby: origami! All the way through high school this was a big hobby of mine, but it has fallen by the wayside. With the rediscovery of my paper and books, and with nothing else to do, I\u0026rsquo;ve been keeping myself occupied folding paper. The best project so far has been a castle, a modular model which required 42 squares of paper folded into various structures and joined without glue or tape. Here\u0026rsquo;s some glamor shots:\nAnd if are really bored you can watch this YouTube video which is a walk-around of the model:\nIn addition, I\u0026rsquo;ve dusted off the old trumpet and started practicing again, in anticipation of I know not what; perhaps it is primarily to again recapitulate my childhood experiences! At any rate, brass instruments require a long period of readjustment as many small facial muscles need to be retrained. Right now I\u0026rsquo;m no better than I was in 8th grade and can only play for a third of the time. Perhaps I will improve reasonably over the course of the holiday, and, who knows, put trumpet on our next CD! (We hope to record a Christmas album this week\u0026ndash;stay tuned for that).\nCertainly, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what the result of all this historical exploration of my past will be. It certainly feels indulgent and unproductive, and sometimes it is painful to remind myself that I am actually connected to a past self that maybe or caused painful things. Still, it is amazing to see certain threads running all through my life, both good and bad. The most brilliant of these is of course the glory and purpose of God, and the grace that I have been given since a small child, which far outweighs all the pain I have experienced or the evil things I have done. And I suppose it is always valuable to realize such a thread exists, for it certainly gives hope of its continued centralizing power in my life!\nAnother brief highlight of the trip so far has been getting reacquainted with the small family of sandhill cranes that make their home in our neighborhood (2 parents and an adolescent). These elegant (though not keenly intelligent) birds are not afraid of humans yet, and we have thankfully given them no reason to be, so they often wander over when we are outside and hang around in or near our driveway. I find them very beautiful, and it is fun to be near wild creatures that are not afraid of or dangerous to humans:\nWell, notwithstanding my desires to continue blogging, day in and day out, about any number of topics, I must force myself to leave off. In fact, I\u0026rsquo;m going to try and ignore computers and the internet for as long as I can! I know I won\u0026rsquo;t last long. But if I am not, for instance, responding to your e-mails, please understand that this is the reason. Cheers!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/11/productive-nostalgia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am at home in Orlando right now, to be with family and relax during the Thanksgiving holidays. Another stated goal of this time is to avoid using the computer as much as possible so I can begin healing from my \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury\"\u003eRSI\u0026rsquo;s\u003c/a\u003e. As you can tell from the mere fact of my blogging, such is more difficult for me than it sounds. In fact, I\u0026rsquo;ve begun to see computer avoidance as a discipline I should practice for spiritual as well as physical reasons.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt any rate, it is good to be home. One of the tasks my mother has set me for my time here is to go through all my old boxes of saved school projects, mementos, love letters, etc., and to vaguely scrapbook them. (For me, \u0026ldquo;scrapbooking\u0026rdquo; involves putting things into a binder).\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Productive Nostalgia"},{"content":"(Last night, in the swirling waters of the hottúb, I had the opportunity to reflect for a while on reflection. Can there be anything more reflexive? No, indeed there can\u0026rsquo;t. I was thinking about the various processes of reflection that I\u0026rsquo;ve engaged in during my life, some more important and some less so, and it struck me that these times were always of immense value, though they were maybe attended (at the time) by strife, uncertainty, and even despair. I wanted, therefore, to define and recommend a life of reflection in an essay, which follows. But first, a disclaimer: to encourage certain types of detractors to read further, I need to say that I am not recommending a life solely consisting of reflection, of course\u0026ndash;rather, I am recommending a life that appropriately integrates reflection, whatever \u0026ldquo;appropriate\u0026rdquo; means. I feel the need to write, not to settle what portion of life should be deliberation and what portion action, if these can even be meaningfully separated, but instead out of an observation that our culture certainly stifles reflection, and out of a desire to see that force balanced). A Call to Reflection\nFirst, let\u0026rsquo;s define reflection. What is it? I think it\u0026rsquo;s very simple; I\u0026rsquo;d define \u0026ldquo;reflection on/about X\u0026rdquo; as \u0026ldquo;purposive thought about X, particularly with regard to my own psychological, epistemological, and intentional relations to X\u0026rdquo;. In other words, thinking seriously and critically about X.\nSecond, it is widely recognized (following Quine) that all the (uncountable) beliefs that comprise our psychologies can be modeled as a huge interconnected web, with the more fundamental, tightly-held, worldview-level beliefs occupying the protected center of the web, and the less important, day-to-day beliefs occupying positions along the perimeter. It is these peripheral, maybe temporary beliefs, whether of my current sense experience, or of what I had for breakfast, etc., that border (from the perspective of my epistemology) most directly on extra-individual reality (reality outside of myself).\nWhen I talk about reflection in what follows, I will be talking about it with reference to the more central, \u0026ldquo;core\u0026rdquo; aspects of our epistemologies. My observation is that these belief systems are often the ones we take the most for granted. We often find, as a result of this, people in our society whom we can observe to be perfectly \u0026ldquo;reflective\u0026rdquo; on peripheral beliefs and issues (perhaps political topics), but who have not, for whatever reason, engaged in any process of reflection regarding the cherished center of the web.\nSo far, I haven\u0026rsquo;t said anything about why I think reflection about these central nodes would be beneficial, or what side-effects such reflection might have. It will be my contention both that (a) serious and recurring reflection on these central beliefs is indeed valuable, while at the same time, (b) such reflection can come at a high cost. That the second contention is true should not be controversial\u0026ndash;everyone has seen that a spider-web with damage at the periphery can be repaired quite easily by an industrious spider, but a web with destruction at its center is almost irreparable, and an entirely new web must be constructed. So it is with the web of belief\u0026ndash;drastic central changes cause everything to be rebuilt, and this deconstruction/reconstruction is a vulnerable, time-consuming, and sometimes hopeless task. Thus the first of my two contentions becomes a contention indeed.\nBefore arguing the claim that reflection is valuable despite its cost, I want to put two enumerations forward which may be helpful. The first is a list of psychological attitudes one can have towards reflection on a given central issue. First, a person can be \u0026ldquo;unreflective\u0026rdquo; about X, meaning she has not thought about X as a distinct entity warranting reflection, or has assumed X to be so epistemologically sure that reflection is superfluous. Second, a person can be \u0026ldquo;reflective\u0026rdquo; about X if she satisfies the definition of reflection above with regard to X. Third, a person can be \u0026ldquo;anti-reflective\u0026rdquo; about X if she realizes reflection about X is possible, even warranted, but deliberately chooses not to engage in it. We could no doubt think of many examples of friends who fit into each of these categories. We could also name any number of reasons why a person would be anti-reflective, after realizing what a costly enterprise reflection is; cherished beliefs are exactly that\u0026ndash;cherished! And to put our cherished things in harm\u0026rsquo;s way can cause extremely negative reactions. From this list we can generalize psychological or \u0026ldquo;personality\u0026rdquo; descriptors: some people tend to be unreflective, some people tend to be reflective, and some people tend to be anti-reflective, when it comes to their cherished beliefs. (Very few people are anti-reflective in all areas of inquiry, though most are un reflective in most areas of inquiry).\nSecond, there is now an obvious way to chop up a person\u0026rsquo;s web of belief. Some beliefs will be pre-reflective, that is, beliefs held but not yet seriously questioned. Some others will be in crisis, or under investigation\u0026ndash;held, but perhaps tentatively, while a process of reflection goes on. At the end of the process, the beliefs might survive unchanged, or they might be modified, or they might be transported to a different part of the web, or connections between them and other beliefs might be redrawn. They might also be jettisoned completely. Beliefs that do survive we can label as \u0026ldquo;post-reflective\u0026rdquo;, that is, beliefs that have a tested relationship with the beliefs around them, all the way out to the periphery and beyond, to the extra-individual reality itself (the universe). I find it important to insist not just on self-coherence (the result of reflection on beliefs vis a vis other beliefs), but on integration with what we can discover of reality outside ourselves (the result of reflection on beliefs vis a vis nature, other people, traditions both familiar and unfamiliar, scientific facts and knowledge, and any other kind of knowledge we can gain on any stratum of reality). More will be said about this later.\nSo, what I want to contend is that (a) ceteris paribus, it is better to be a reflective person than an un- or anti-reflective person, and (b) ceteris paribus, it is better to have post-reflective beliefs than pre-reflective beliefs. In (b), this amounts to saying that it is better to have beliefs that have been willingly put in crisis and survived scrutiny than otherwise. The way the argument proceeds is simple:\nCeteris paribus, it is better (though perhaps less profitable or \u0026ldquo;fit\u0026rdquo;) to believe a true statement than a false one. So, ceteris paribus, it is better to have as high a percentage of true beliefs as possible. The process of reflection is the process whereby we seriously question and attempt, as far as we can, to discern the likelihood that a certain set of beliefs is true or false. Therefore, it is better to be a reflective person, and to have a preponderance of post-reflective beliefs. As you\u0026rsquo;d imagine, there are a number of places one could ask questions along the way, particularly about truth. What is truth? While it would be sheer lunacy to delve into such a question here, allow me to offer a simple answer without justification, trusting that its sensible nature will be clear, however many objections could be raised to it. Truth is, essentially, a relationship between statements and reality. Reality itself simply is. A rock, for instance, is neither true nor false. It is simply a rock. Truth and falsity are predicates of statements about reality. That the rock is a sandy brown, for instance can be true or false (once the philosophy of language questions have been answered regarding the semantics of \u0026ldquo;rock\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;brown\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;another rabbit hole we cannot dive down at this time\u0026ndash;but I take it that you know what I mean by \u0026ldquo;rock\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;brown\u0026rdquo;).\nOn my view, the statement is true if it accurately describes reality, and false otherwise. Such a view flies in the face of some philosophers who complain that we cannot simply \u0026ldquo;compare\u0026rdquo; statements about reality and reality itself, or that reality itself is completely inaccessible in any case. While their concerns are valid, I take it for granted that human experience as a whole (not least since the advent of rigorous science) belies the notion that we are completely closed off from reality. It may be difficult\u0026ndash;it may be the most difficult human task in general\u0026ndash;to really discern whether words and reality cohere, but I believe it can be done, even if imperfectly.\nEven if we take the question of truth as settled, why should we believe that it is better to believe truly than falsely? We are often told by psychologists how false beliefs can function as mental crutches in a confused and dangerous world. Likewise, we can all think of examples where believing a lie leads, at least in the short term, to greater happiness (or evolutionary fitness). This is actually a hard question, but I think my definition of truth above informs this discussion helpfully. If truth is ultimately about reality, not about relationships between words and themselves, and if we are ultimately creatures which inhabit that same reality, then it will be the case that, on the whole, true beliefs help us successfully navigate reality, whereas false ones don\u0026rsquo;t. This amounts to saying that the psychologists may be right about certain psychological benefits of falsehoods, but these are the exceptions that prove the rule. The general case is quite obvious\u0026ndash;without such a view of truth, modern science would fail miserably, and humans would disappear rapidly off the face of the earth. If I stand on the top of a building and believe that I can run off the edge and fly, I will discover, when that belief is put to the test, the dramatic difference between the success rates of truth and falsity in general.\nThere is no reason to suppose that the general usefulness of true beliefs is a feature only of our physical relationship to air and pavement. But curiously, normally quite rational people who would never for a moment consider jumping off a building engage in much the same practice with philosophical or religious beliefs about reality. In other words, we have all reflected, however briefly, about the importance of not jumping off buildings (if we want to continue in life). But few, it seems, have chosen to deeply understand the realities which supposedly undergird our philosophical and theological discourses. That is where I recommend reflection, and where I propose that serious reflection in these spheres can bring success in reality just as reflection on the flightless nature of humans can provide success in another part of that same reality.\nSo, I think we have established my main point, and it is not, in any case, often questioned by serious philosophers (if only because they wish to justify, after the fact, their having spent obscene amounts of time in perhaps-useless reflection). More must be said, however, to forestall a few conclusions that could be reached, given only what I have said so far.\nFirst, a preponderance of true beliefs is not the be-all and end-all of psychological success. I have listed it here as a motivation for reflection, but it is not the only one, even if it is the one most-touted. An anti-reflective individual may happen to have a higher percentage of true beliefs than a reflective individual. While this could be so for any number of reasons, it is, in the limit, accidental (hence all the \u0026ldquo;ceteris paribus\u0026rdquo; clauses throughout this essay). But even in that case I would say that it is better to be the reflective person, and not just for the long-term truth benefits. I see a life typified by reflection as having moral and social dimensions as well.\nWhile it is the case, for example, that reflection can lead to knowledge, in many of the areas most worthy of reflection, it may lead simply of an awareness of the vastness of the problem. Often our pre-reflective state is actually much simpler than our post-reflective one. In the process of reflection, we do not simply move from false assumptions to true answers. Rather, we are forced to engage with a reality that is incredibly complicated. We are forced to examine positions and ideas we had not before even considered existing. In many cases, what we find when we do examine those positions and ideas are yet further subdivisions, further choices to be made, and, as it often feels, further ways to be wrong. Reflection is rarely about moving from tightly-held, unjustified beliefs to tightly-held, justified beliefs. Rather, the awareness of the immensity of the scope of possible answers to a particular question breeds an awareness of the infinitesimal chance we have of being exactly right in anything we say, which therefore compels us to be tentative and cautious, to take reality seriously and to not be hasty in decisions about it. Answers are adopted loosely and their mileage is tested, and the experience of past reflections develops a character of inquisitiveness and tentativeness.\nNow that I have spoken about character, you can see some of the non-truth-related benefits of reflection. To sum up its developmental benefits, I would say that reflection encourages humility. While the motivation for reflection is truth in the sphere of reflection, be it religious or otherwise, the result of reflection is typically the appreciation that truth is much harder to grasp than we originally thought. Prior to reflection, we come to reality brazenly, arrogantly, telling it how we think it is and assuming that it will respond thusly. After reflection, we realize that, vis a vis the infinitely complex reality of the universe and God, there is very little we can say. At that stage, having bowed respectfully to our partner, we can begin to cautiously build up theories and test them, perhaps (and hopefully) eventually coming to true knowledge. Any other method attempts to ravish reality for what we can strip from it to use for our own ends, which are usually (however subconsciously) abusive. This attitude is not only an intellectual but a moral failing. In short, echoing Proverbs, reflection gives us wisdom, and systematically avoiding it makes us fools.\n(Briefly, I should also mention, without attempting to substantiate, a social benefit to reflection: I have observed, and it has been my personal experience, that it is more enjoyable to be around reflective people than anti-reflective people. The latter are often loud, brash, unwilling to compromise, and closed-minded. While these are all concepts unrelated to truth and falsity, they do have a sociological component that makes their carriers unpleasant.)\nAnyway, at this stage in the essay the reader may be forgiven for feeling confusion. Further above, I praised reflection for delivering truth. Just above, I praised it for delivering an awareness that truth is well-nigh inaccessible! Which is it? I think both are important for reasons already mentioned, and I think holding both together is the key to engaging in reflection successfully. It should be remembered, incidentally, that knowing what is not true is often as valuable as knowing what is. If the result of reflection for an individual is merely the discovery that a certain set of beliefs is false, well, she has eradicated those beliefs from her web, and added a true belief (the negation of the old ones), thereby causing a net increase in her percentage of true beliefs. So perhaps the conflict isn\u0026rsquo;t as grave as it looks. Moreover, we have been talking all along as if it is possible for us to know when our beliefs are true. While this knowledge is often possible, it is often not, and so the situation \u0026ldquo;on the ground\u0026rdquo; may not be as clear cut as we have made it.\nEssentially, holding these two aspects of reflection together is where the \u0026ldquo;critical realist\u0026rdquo; viewpoint of this essay becomes clear. The modernist, Enlightenment mentality would suggest that reflection is a straightforward process of doubting all non-\u0026ldquo;rational\u0026rdquo; beliefs, and then building the belief web back using only \u0026ldquo;rational\u0026rdquo; beliefs. Of course, such a project is not only arrogant but untenable (\u0026ldquo;reason\u0026rdquo; turns out to be a moving target). On the other hand, the post-modern mentality would suggest that the purpose of reflection is to realize that nothing true at all can be said about anything, or equivalently that the way I have defined truth is wrong (perhaps sentences carry their own truth).\nOver against both of these, I want to recommend a process of reflection whereby we acknowledge the over-simplicity of our pre-reflective beliefs, but interact courageously and respectfully with reality to, as best we can, find out what really is the case. This process will not be easy or obvious, and it will involve many dead-ends, getting lost in circles, and reversals of program. But, after slogging through the morass, we will find after an appropriate amount of time and honest effort that we have actually gone somewhere, even if the net gain is only a few feet forward.\nLastly, I want to suggest that good reflection consists of at least two important stages, namely deconstruction and reconstruction. Deconstruction is the process whereby beliefs are doubted and dismantled, and reconstruction is the process whereby new beliefs (or even the same ones) are developed from the debris, albeit always in a critical manner. Deconstruction, then, is what encourages the humility and respect for reality I mentioned. Reconstruction is the ensuing dance with reality whereby we cautiously build up beliefs, consistently testing them and using only the strongest available materials we have on hand.\nNeither of these processes are perfect. We rarely deconstruct wholesale, because of the psychological wounds it leaves. A ship (Neurath\u0026rsquo;s ship, it\u0026rsquo;s called, after the philosopher who coined the analogy) traveling on the sea in need of repair can indeed be repaired\u0026ndash;but it cannot be re-built from the ground up while on the waves, or it would sink. Likewise, during reconstruction we often have to use imperfect materials\u0026ndash;whatever reality has laying about. But we should not, just for that reason, despair of reconstructing at all, because if we leave off this task, a slow leak in the ship\u0026rsquo;s side will cause the whole thing to sink after a while, anyway. Eventually, judgement calls must be made, or the whole enterprise founders! The goal, then, is an ongoing process of deconstruction and reconstruction based on the best available bits of reality. If the ship can survive long enough, perhaps it can make it to land and harvest new timber!\nAll of the foregoing means, of course, that two people reflecting on the same questions, even if in largely similar environments, might come to differ on certain points. This is an unfortunate, but unavoidable, consequence of the \u0026ldquo;critical\u0026rdquo; nature of \u0026ldquo;critical realism\u0026rdquo;. Ultimately, only reality itself is the arbiter between two different answers, and given that we do not have immediate and direct access to reality (as in naive realism), we are not guaranteed that such arbitration is shortly forthcoming. This does not mean that all answers to all questions are equal, only that in some cases, if two competing answers both adequately and excellently explain certain features of reality, we may not be able to decide between them on their own merits. In such a case we can zoom out to a wider network of beliefs in which each answer resides, and perhaps put these wider networks to the test. (And even there, we could run into a similar problem). The hope is that as our respectful engagement with reality proceeds, new material will come to light that will arbitrate helpfully. Such has been the founding hope of the sciences, and many examples could be given of how the hope is constantly fulfilled (the discovery of cosmic background radiation, for example, helped to arbitrate between Big Bang theories and their competitors).\nSo, there is an exhortation to a life of reflection! It can be a frightening proposition to take a cherished belief (say the resurrection of Jesus for a Christian, or the non-existence of God for an atheist) and really hold it up to the mirror of reality, but ultimately there can be no better exercise. Granted, the boat of our psychology must stay afloat to sustain this reflection in the first place (and therefore it may not be wise to completely sink it with undue skepticism). Still, if we choose to avoid it, we are denying ourselves that growth (intellectual, psychological, spiritual) which gives us such benefits as knowledge, wisdom and humility. Therefore out of love for your cherished beliefs, submit them to reality and decide whether they really are worthy of your admiration.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/11/a-call-to-reflection/","summary":"\u003cem\u003e(Last night, in the swirling waters of the hottúb, I had the opportunity to reflect for a while on reflection. Can there be anything more reflexive? No, indeed there can\u0026rsquo;t. I was thinking about the various processes of reflection that I\u0026rsquo;ve engaged in during my life, some more important and some less so, and it struck me that these times were always of immense value, though they were maybe attended (at the time) by strife, uncertainty, and even despair. I wanted, therefore, to define and recommend a life of reflection in an essay, which follows. But first, a disclaimer: to encourage certain types of detractors to read further, I need to say that I am not recommending a life solely consisting of reflection, of course\u0026ndash;rather, I am recommending a life that appropriately integrates reflection, whatever \u0026ldquo;appropriate\u0026rdquo; means. I feel the need to write, not to settle what portion of life should be deliberation and what portion action, if these can even be meaningfully separated, but instead out of an observation that our culture certainly stifles reflection, and out of a desire to see that force balanced).\u003c/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eA Call to Reflection\u003c/strong\u003e","title":"A Call to Reflection"},{"content":"It\u0026rsquo;s been a while. I hope you all enjoyed the rush of non-catch-up-style blogs, with actual content! (Be it poetic, scientific, or theological) That time is over. Now for some random notes:\n1. Over the past few years I\u0026rsquo;ve been giving myself what\u0026rsquo;s called \u0026ldquo;repetitive stress syndrome\u0026rdquo; in my hands and arms from excessive computing. It has now flowered into something extremely painful, almost what I\u0026rsquo;d call debilitating (at least for computer work). It\u0026rsquo;s frustrating because I need to work on my computer to make money to live, but that work hurts my body, which in turn impairs the amount of time that I can work, so I make less money, so I need to work more, etc\u0026hellip; I\u0026rsquo;m trying to figure out how to get out of the cycle for enough time to heal. On another whiney note, similar problems are plaguing my lower extremities, so my usual pick-me-ups of quick 6-mile (or even 1-mile) runs are now no longer options. Thus I sit around and think how I wish I could either work or play, but can\u0026rsquo;t do either. On the bright side, I can read, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing a lot of that.\n2. I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading Jesus and the Victory of God by NT Wright (2nd in his multi-volume work on Christian origins and the question of God). It is incredible, and builds well upon the foundation of his first book (excerpts of which I did not share here, unfortunately). Also, to my utter delight my old Greek prof let me borrow a book called Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers, which is exactly what it purports to be: a linguistic history of the Greek language within the context of other historical events. Finally, the itch of my curiosity about how the Greek language evolved from a highly inflected tonal language thousands of years ago to the relatively simple Indo-European tongue we know as Modern Greek. Fascinating.\n3. I went to visit my sister Rachel in Nashville this week! It was lots of fun to see her and hang out (even though we both spent most our time working on exams or jobs). She took me to some cool places and we finished the trip with a Copeland / Appleseed Cast show which rocked hardcore. Hardcore rockage\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s what it was! I love both bands, and it was fun to chat with them momentarily after the show.\n4. I\u0026rsquo;ve been wanting to blog reactions to some of the stuff I\u0026rsquo;ve been reading and other things (including some Enaselvai translations that I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on), but as it\u0026rsquo;s not good for me to type unless it\u0026rsquo;s absolutely necessary, I will have to postpone such endeavors. Indeed, blogging may be a little slow for the next while unless my therapy makes any good progress. (Likewise, dreams of getting back into Warcraft when the expansion is released have gone down the tubes\u0026hellip;which in the long run is probably a good thing)\n5. I read through a bunch of old blog entries recently (from jonathanlipps.com/weblog) and was again surprised by how often (and how poorly) I blogged back when I started. For instance, in February 2002 I wrote 35 entries. It\u0026rsquo;s hard to believe it was 4 and a half years ago!\n6. FACEBOOK.\nNow I must bid you adieu.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/11/early-november-notes-at-random/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s been a while. I hope you all enjoyed the rush of non-catch-up-style blogs, with actual content! (Be it poetic, scientific, or theological) That time is over. Now for some random notes:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. Over the past few years I\u0026rsquo;ve been giving myself what\u0026rsquo;s called \u0026ldquo;repetitive stress syndrome\u0026rdquo; in my hands and arms from excessive computing. It has now flowered into something extremely painful, almost what I\u0026rsquo;d call debilitating (at least for computer work). It\u0026rsquo;s frustrating because I need to work on my computer to make money to live, but that work hurts my body, which in turn impairs the amount of time that I can work, so I make less money, so I need to work more, etc\u0026hellip; I\u0026rsquo;m trying to figure out how to get out of the cycle for enough time to heal. On another whiney note, similar problems are plaguing my lower extremities, so my usual pick-me-ups of quick 6-mile (or even 1-mile) runs are now no longer options. Thus I sit around and think how I wish I could either work or play, but can\u0026rsquo;t do either. On the bright side, I can read, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing a lot of that.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Early November Notes at Random"},{"content":"And now, the shorter, more poetic, and (I think) more important cousin to my earlier essay:\nThe Earth That Was (We Who Were) Mountains, forests, deserts, and seas, full of beauty and life. They are stark as reality but good as truth. There is freedom to explore, to go one way or another, to drink from this or that stream, to sleep now or later, to eat from the fruit of this tree or to be satisfied with the berries from that bush. Whether I go or stay, I rest in the comfort that there was no better choice than the one I just made. I trust myself as a creature amidst creation, I trust myself to be aimed correctly, to never fail to be appropriately situated for the appropriate function towards the appropriate result at the appropriate time. Right and wrong may exist, but if so, they exist as a land beyond the mountains at the farthest reach of my eagle\u0026rsquo;s sight. Success and failure may exist, but if so, they exist as an imperceptible cloud bank miles off the shores of the sea, held at bay by the unshakeable high pressure of the perfection of the land. At any rate, they are not worth considering. What matters is what is at hand, and what is at hand is pure goodness and joy. How beautiful and fine the brush of God, painting not End but Beginning, not Command but Possibility! The Earth That Is (We Who Are) The universe is a plane, infinite in front and below, but infinitesimal in width. It is a sheet of paper on edge, the cuts of which go deeper than any blade. The abstract has become the real, and the real has been flattened, coerced to serve a harsh and cold master. Life is walking the razor, the thin tightrope of Righteousness which is so ephemeral. To either side the void howls with a commanding rage, black maws agape and hungry. The line is safe but not sure. In fact, it is so thin the very molecules of my feet are sundered, falling into either abyss. I am slit, riven, sinking into the two-dimensional compression, and grasp at the gossamer strand. Oh, but it is made of sharply glistening diamonds and I am not! My hands turn to ribbons of flayed skin. How beautiful and cruel the spinneret of God, casting lines of hope that kill! The Earth That Will Be (We Who May Yet Be) The storm has come over the mountains, and has met the storm from over the sea. The land is ravaged, and not many survive. A great volcano was thrust up, and cast ash and unquenchable fire over the ruined beauty. The land is again ravaged, and now even fewer survive. I leave my shelter and weep over the destruction we have wrought. Where now the beauty? Where now the life? I stand on the plains of desolation and the sun pierces the ash in the sky. I am blinded; I have not seen the sun in a very long time. It illuminates the sludge in front of me. Look here! But it is a whisper of green, gently unfolding, a baby in the arms of mother sun. I remember the Hell where we have been, and Hope suddenly coalesces into Truth. My rebirth blasts Righteousness\u0026ndash;diamantine no longer\u0026ndash;into so many glass shards. With joy, I stretch my hand toward the naked and shy plant, and I sing. It responds with a movement more melodic than any lyric, dancing, unfolding new leaves, shaking brazenly in the sheen of a summer sun, an island of new in a sea of old. In a moment the buds, and before their fragrance has departed: fruit! Round, full, and inviting. I see that it is, without any doubt, good. I call to my brethren, to we who have outlasted both Ignorance and Knowledge, and with crucified wills we know what must be done. Come, Oak and Owl! Come, Pterodactyl and Tiger! How beautiful and loving the inexorable regeneration of God, crushing death itself with its power! Amen.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/10/we-who-may-yet-be/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAnd now, the shorter, more poetic, and (I think) more important cousin to my \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/486\"\u003eearlier essay\u003c/a\u003e:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Earth That Was (We Who Were)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eMountains, forests, deserts, and seas, full of beauty and life. They are stark as reality but good as truth. There is freedom to explore, to go one way or another, to drink from this or that stream, to sleep now or later, to eat from the fruit of this tree or to be satisfied with the berries from that bush. Whether I go or stay, I rest in the comfort that there was no better choice than the one I just made. I trust myself as a creature amidst creation, I trust myself to be aimed correctly, to never fail to be appropriately situated for the appropriate function towards the appropriate result at the appropriate time. Right and wrong may exist, but if so, they exist as a land beyond the mountains at the farthest reach of my eagle\u0026rsquo;s sight. Success and failure may exist, but if so, they exist as an imperceptible cloud bank miles off the shores of the sea, held at bay by the unshakeable high pressure of the perfection of the land. At any rate, they are not worth considering. What matters is what is at hand, and what is at hand is pure goodness and joy. How beautiful and fine the brush of God, painting not End but Beginning, not Command but Possibility!\u003c/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eThe Earth That Is (We Who Are)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe universe is a plane, infinite in front and below, but infinitesimal in width. It is a sheet of paper on edge, the cuts of which go deeper than any blade. The abstract has become the real, and the real has been flattened, coerced to serve a harsh and cold master. Life is walking the razor, the thin tightrope of Righteousness which is so ephemeral. To either side the void howls with a commanding rage, black maws agape and hungry. The line is safe but not sure. In fact, it is so thin the very molecules of my feet are sundered, falling into either abyss. I am slit, riven, sinking into the two-dimensional compression, and grasp at the gossamer strand. Oh, but it is made of sharply glistening diamonds and I am not! My hands turn to ribbons of flayed skin. How beautiful and cruel the spinneret of God, casting lines of hope that kill!\u003c/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eThe Earth That Will Be (We Who May Yet Be)\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe storm has come over the mountains, and has met the storm from over the sea. The land is ravaged, and not many survive. A great volcano was thrust up, and cast ash and unquenchable fire over the ruined beauty. The land is again ravaged, and now even fewer survive. I leave my shelter and weep over the destruction we have wrought. Where now the beauty? Where now the life? I stand on the plains of desolation and the sun pierces the ash in the sky. I am blinded; I have not seen the sun in a very long time. It illuminates the sludge in front of me. Look here! But it is a whisper of green, gently unfolding, a baby in the arms of mother sun. I remember the Hell where we have been, and Hope suddenly coalesces into Truth. My rebirth blasts Righteousness\u0026ndash;diamantine no longer\u0026ndash;into so many glass shards. With joy, I stretch my hand toward the naked and shy plant, and I sing. It responds with a movement more melodic than any lyric, dancing, unfolding new leaves, shaking brazenly in the sheen of a summer sun, an island of new in a sea of old. In a moment the buds, and before their fragrance has departed: fruit! Round, full, and inviting. I see that it is, without any doubt, good. I call to my brethren, to we who have outlasted both Ignorance and Knowledge, and with crucified wills we know what must be done. Come, Oak and Owl! Come, Pterodactyl and Tiger! How beautiful and loving the inexorable regeneration of God, crushing death itself with its power! Amen.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"We Who May Yet Be"},{"content":"I was inspired after a recent conversation (on humans\u0026rsquo; psychological relationship with our own spiritual development) to do something I have been meaning to do for a long time, namely to put into practice some of the methodologies that I considered very powerful after reading Alister McGrath\u0026rsquo;s A Scientific Theology trilogy. Essentially, I want to bring the well-known concept of mathematical modeling to bear on a theological issue (spiritual development). In doing so, I am hoping to achieve what all models are meant to achieve\u0026ndash;an analogy that captures as much of the data as possible while providing a simple, coherent, abstract picture that can be investigated in its own right. I am emphatically not trying to define or otherwise delineate all aspects of spiritual development via such a model; spiritual development is the reality, and any model is simply a way of attempting to capture that reality and present it in such a way as to spark further exploration. That is all! Indeed, just in virtue of the fact that the model I am about to propose is mathematical, we should not expect it to speak to all (or even most) of the phenomena surrounding spiritual development, which exists in a stratum of reality distinct from that of mathematics. Still, some surprising correlations can be made, and I hope these may be found useful.\nThese, then, are the data I am taking as given, and trying to model (notice that they are not physical data, but theological and psychological, even moral data):\nGood and evil are infinitely incommensurable. If we presume that there are beings which exhibit infinite goodness or infinite evil, these correspond to God and the devil, and \u0026ldquo;infinite goodness\u0026rdquo; would describe the character of God, as would \u0026ldquo;infinite evil\u0026rdquo; describe the character of the devil. The state of spiritual development of a human being can exist on a spectrum anywhere between infinite goodness and infinite evil (though it cannot exist at either endpoint). This datum reflects the observation that humans are never found to be perfectly good or perfectly evil (excepting, in Christian theology, the special case of Jesus). It is easier to be morally mediocre than morally perfect Incremental advances in spiritual development (morality) are easier at a \u0026ldquo;less moral\u0026rdquo; stage than a \u0026ldquo;more moral\u0026rdquo; stage. Paradoxically, one\u0026rsquo;s awareness of one\u0026rsquo;s own depravity (immorality) becomes greater the less depraved one actually becomes. Now we may take a look at the model. I propose that all these data may be plotted in various ways around the function y = -a/bx and various ways of graphing it: (Please note that all of the graphs here may appear too small to read, in which case you have simply to click on them to load a larger version)\nWe have chosen for our values of a and b the number 1, since, as we will see, the actual function slope will not matter as much as its relation to certain factors. If it were possible to quantify absolutely any of what follows (which appears to be doubtful), we could experimentally determine a and b, but that is beside the point here.\nHere are the initial correspondences ( INF := infinity):\nThe values of the function y = -1/x correspond to possible states in the spiritual development of a human being. Perfect goodness corresponds to the y axis\u0026ndash;specifically at the point x=0, y=INF. Perfect evil corresponds to the x axis\u0026ndash;specifically at the point x=-INF, y=0. And we can already begin to see how the model agrees with some of our data:\nPerfect good and perfect evil are infinitely incommensurable (data 1 and 2 above): First, they are located at points infinitely far from each other in 2-dimensional space. Second, they are not even in a continuous spectrum of points\u0026ndash;no line which connects them can be drawn, for such a line would correspond to the impossible function y = x + INF. Moreover, they exist in two completely orthogonal dimensions. Our observation that human spiritual development can be on a spectrum anywhere between, but not including, perfect good and perfect evil (datum 3 above) is captured perfectly by saying that it is plotted on the graph y = -1/x. The curve never meets the x and y axes, but passes through every other x and y value (though of course not every x/y combination). Now let us extend the model. Let us define the notion of \u0026ldquo;spiritual work\u0026rdquo; to mean the effort (whether internal or external, and relative to persons) required to move along the spiritual development curve towards good. We can quantify this notion, determining the specific amount of work required to move between two points on the spiritual development curve, using the integral of the curve. The integral of the curve between two x-values is the appropriate mathematical construct for our purposes because it tells us the area underneath the curve between those x-values. This area, importantly, reflects our observation that incremental advances in spiritual development become more difficult further along the curve. Let\u0026rsquo;s look at some examples.\nFirst, take a graphical depiction of the area underneath our curve between the (arbitrarily-chosen) x-values -8.0 and -5.6 (for a span of length 2.4\u0026ndash;corresponding to the amount of spiritual \u0026ldquo;progress\u0026rdquo; made):\nThe area depicted happens to be about 0.36, so we can say that for this arbitrarily-chosen progress of spiritual development (a progress corresponding to the number 2.4), the spiritual work required is 0.36. Now, it is important to note that neither the x-values chosen, the \u0026ldquo;progress\u0026rdquo; value of 2.4, nor the \u0026ldquo;work\u0026rdquo; value of 0.36 have been given any real-world correspondents. The main thing here is that they are related to each other in a certain way\u0026ndash;mapping such quantities to the reality of spiritual development is outside the scope of this model (an important limitation of it), and possibly outside the scope of possibility in general.\nNow, let us look at another progress-graph, this time progressing from the x-value of -3.2 to -0.8. Notice that again we have a total progress of 2.4.\nAs is visually obvious, the area (corresponding to work) under the curve between these points is much greater. As it happens, it is 1.39, almost 4 times greater than our previous work value of 0.36! We could, of course, continue to belabor the point with more and more examples, culminating with the discovery that, at any point where we wish to integrate from one x-value to 0, the area under the curve becomes infinite (in terms of work: impossible). Also needless to say, even the particular way in which 1.39 is related to 0.36 is not important\u0026ndash;what is important here is that there is an increasing difficulty (in terms of work) as we move closer to pure goodness.\nIt appears, then, that the model accurately handles our observations of how spiritual progress is made, and its corresponding difficulty (data 4 and 5 above). Already some theological fruit is ripe for the plucking as a result of the model, particularly in regards to work: statements in the New Testament such as \u0026ldquo;With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible\u0026rdquo; take on new meaning as we see via the model that (if it is accurate), becoming purely good is indeed impossible for us. Perhaps, then, these words of Jesus are not referring to such actions as we would normally consider \u0026ldquo;supernatural\u0026rdquo; (throwing mountains into the sea, having power over the weather, etc..), but rather to the spiritual development we normally find impossible. Alas, in order to stay on task, we should save such ruminations for a later essay.\nNow we come to the last datum under discussion (6 above), namely the psychological observation that, the closer we get to God\u0026rsquo;s nature (perfect goodness), the farther we often feel from it. A cursory reading of the Apostle Paul\u0026rsquo;s epistles is enough to prove that this feeling has been with Christians since the beginning. How can this psychological fact possibly be modeled using the same graphs with which we have been working? The key here is in the realization that the datum refers to our own perspective, our own awareness, rather than a definite aspect of the reality of spiritual development. That is, in reality, the closer we get to God\u0026rsquo;s nature, the closer we are to pure goodness, however we might feel about it. All this amounts to saying is that, if we have made spiritual progress, we have made spiritual progress! The tautology arises because we have simply defined \u0026ldquo;spiritual progress\u0026rdquo; as \u0026ldquo;growth in character which brings that character closer to God\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rdquo;. So, given that the datum under discussion is not about our actual progress on the path of spiritual development (the actual location on the curve in the model), it stands to reason that there should be no \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; change to the model necessary to accommodate the datum. And, in fact, this is what we find.\nIt turns out that, just as the datum concerns perception in the reality of spiritual development, so it concerns perception (better called \u0026ldquo;perspective\u0026rdquo;) in our model. Specifically, our feelings about our spiritual development (i.e., our closeness to God) can be mapped to a relation of (a) our position on the curve, and (b) the specific way the curve (always mathematically the same) is represented to our visual senses, via properties of whatever \u0026ldquo;viewport\u0026rdquo; (screen, paper) we use to look at the curve.\nTake, for example, this graph (the same as our first):\nThe dot at -0.4, 2.5 corresponds, let\u0026rsquo;s say, to our current position on the spiritual development curve. (If only we could be so lucky in real life!) Now there are two values we need to fill out the relation between (a) and (b) above. First, there is the x-distance between where we are and pure goodness (call it the \u0026ldquo;actual remaining progress\u0026rdquo;). We get this by subtracting our x-location from the x-location of pure goodness; in this case it\u0026rsquo;s the value 0.4. So close, yet so far away! Next, we need what I will call the \u0026ldquo;width of the viewport\u0026rdquo;. That is, the maximum x-value shown on the graph minus the minimum x-value shown on the graph. In this case it is 10. Finally, the value we want is the actual remaining progress divided by the width of the viewport (in our case, 0.4 / 10.0 = 0.04). We can call this value the \u0026ldquo;perceived remaining progress\u0026rdquo;. So for this graph, we have a perceived remaining progress of 0.04.\nNow, let\u0026rsquo;s look at another graph:\nThe dot is now at -0.38, 2.63, meaning that the actual remaining progress is now less than in the previous graph: 0.38. We have become better! However, the dimensions of the viewport have changed. Even though the curve looks much the same, the numbers on the axes give the lie: the width of the viewport is now 5, not 10. (To further deceive, I made it so that the x and y axes are no longer equivalently scaled). In other words, we have \u0026ldquo;zoomed in\u0026rdquo;. The perceived remaining progress is then 0.38 / 5.0 = 0.076. It is almost twice the perceived remaining progress of the previous graph, which reflects our observed intuitions that spiritual progress, coupled presumably with an increased awareness of the goodness of God, can actually result in a greater perceived remaining progress (a greater distance from God). This \u0026ldquo;increased awareness\u0026rdquo;, then, is modeled here by the act of \u0026ldquo;zooming in\u0026rdquo;, which we have already more rigorously defined. The net result is that, even though in the second of the two recent graphs we have made progress, we appear to be further from our goal.\nIn order to determine what laws, if any, govern the moments at and degrees to which this \u0026ldquo;zoom\u0026rdquo; takes place, we would need to engage in empirical observation. We could start with the basic assumption, for example, that every decrease in actual remaining progress brings about a corresponding decrease in viewport width, so that perceived remaining progress is always more or less the same. Of course, this assumption is probably erroneous, if only because it ignores the spring-like oscillations that relate changes in viewport width to changes in actual remaining progress. At any rate, the point here is just to show that the model can handle the data under consideration, regardless of whether we can somehow shoehorn it into another model which can make accurate predictions.\nNow, since we have seen that the mathematical model I proposed does indeed handle data 1-6 above, we are left with a few questions. First, is there any feature of the realities of spiritual development as we experience them that cannot be countenanced under this model? We already mentioned the theological claim that Jesus was both a human being and perfectly good. Does this wreck the model as a whole, or can we make special exception for him given his somewhat transpositional nature (much as a physicist does not treat very small quantum particles with the same rules as macroparticles)? In other words, what are the limits of this model?\nSecond, are there any more correspondences that we could make under this model? Perhaps, for example, we could do more with the y-dimension, treating it analogously to distance from a certain massive object. Then we would employ the physical rules of gravitation to explain why there appears to be a constant \u0026ldquo;downward\u0026rdquo; (evil-ward) force with regard to morality (explained in Christian terms as a propensity to do evil as a result of the Fall). For another example, we could attach meaning to the derivative of the spiritual development curve at a given point (the slope of the line tangent to that point on the curve), saying it represents somehow \u0026ldquo;spiritual momentum\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;commitment\u0026rdquo;, on a scale of 0 to infinity.\nLastly, in order to make the model useful in application as well as reflection, is there any way to empirically determine values to replace any of the arbitrarily-chosen I have used here? In other words, is there any way to make these values correspond to actual states of spiritual development? No doubt there are some features of spiritual development that are general and could be explored in the same way by everyone, but some are no doubt relative to individual persons. Could the model be extended to include, say, \u0026ldquo;spiritual constants\u0026rdquo;, much as the physical laws of motion are extended to handle constants of friction for certain surfaces? Or on the other hand does the very nature of the phenomena under investigation preclude any kind of testable or repeatable introspection (or examination of others)? I am forced to admit that I am not optimistic about finding positive answers to these questions.\nStill, I don\u0026rsquo;t think the model wholly useless, and believe that (as good models should), it can provide clear abstraction of some points of the spiritual development process which help us to better understand what is going on, even if these abstractions necessarily have their limits. This clarity is, of course, what all mathematical models grant to investigators who use them to model reality. At different times and for different strata of reality, they cohere more or less exactly with their subject phenomena, and I hope in this essay to have illuminated at least one possible path of researching and modeling spiritual development that uses the resource of mathematics to its advantage.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/10/a-mathematical-model-of-spiritual-development/","summary":"I was inspired after a recent conversation (on humans\u0026rsquo; psychological relationship with our own spiritual development) to do something I have been meaning to do for a long time, namely to put into practice some of the methodologies that I considered very powerful after reading Alister McGrath\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003eA Scientific Theology\u003c/em\u003e trilogy. Essentially, I want to bring the well-known concept of mathematical modeling to bear on a theological issue (spiritual development). In doing so, I am hoping to achieve what all models are meant to achieve\u0026ndash;an analogy that captures as much of the data as possible while providing a simple, coherent, abstract picture that can be investigated in its own right. I am emphatically not trying to \u003cem\u003edefine\u003c/em\u003e or otherwise delineate all aspects of spiritual development via such a model; spiritual development is the reality, and any model is simply a way of attempting to capture that reality and present it in such a way as to spark further exploration. That is all! Indeed, just in virtue of the fact that the model I am about to propose is mathematical, we should not expect it to speak to all (or even most) of the phenomena surrounding spiritual development, which exists in a stratum of reality distinct from that of mathematics. Still, some surprising correlations can be made, and I hope these may be found useful.","title":"A Mathematical Model of Spiritual Development"},{"content":"As we go through life, we gain different kinds of knowledge. Sometimes this knowledge affects only a small part of our understanding of reality. When someone tells me that she ate pizza last night, such knowledge, ceteris paribus, does not effect any significant changes in my worldview. Some knowledge, the \u0026ldquo;knowing-how\u0026rdquo; kind of knowledge (what I call \u0026ldquo;skill\u0026rdquo;) is likewise worldview-ambivalent, in that after gaining such knowledge, our interpretation of events (our perception of their \u0026ldquo;meaning\u0026rdquo;) remains basically the same, except perhaps in a specific area. For example, learning how to use a computer program might allow me to understand the purpose behind actions of other people using the same program, but that knowledge does not affect the fundamental ways in which I perceive reality.\nOn the other hand, there are certain kinds of knowledge, both knowledge-that and knowledge-how (both factual knowledge and skill), that do fundamentally affect how we understand reality. As an example in the first category, take the knowledge that the earth is round. Our thought relationship to such objects as the sun, the moon, and the stars is completely different than that of people a thousand years ago, even though neither the sun, the moon, nor the stars have changed much. Examples in the second category can be found as well (which is what I will mainly be talking about).\nSo far, I have said nothing surprising. It could all have been stated more succinctly: \u0026ldquo;Some facts/skills are more important than others.\u0026rdquo; No doubt anyone would agree. Now I want to make an additional claim: some forms of knowledge are of a sort that, upon gaining, are entrenched so deeply in our mental frameworks that we cannot even coherently imagine seeing the universe in the same way as we did prior to gaining the knowledge. Here is where the skill examples come in. It is easy to imagine, on one hand, a flat earth, even while retaining the knowledge of its roundness. I can form a coherent picture of such an earth in my head. Now take a certain kind of skill\u0026ndash;being able to speak and understand English with the facility of a native speaker. Though I know it\u0026rsquo;s a completely coherent possibility that I see a well-formed English sentence while not understanding it, I can\u0026rsquo;t actually imagine seeing a well-formed English sentence and not understanding it. Any time I imagine a well-formed English sentence, and look at the words, I cannot help but understand it. That is just what it is to be a competent reader/listener of English!\nOther examples abound: before I learned music theory, I could listen to a pop song without any realization of its simple, repetitive chord structure. Now, no matter how much I enjoy the song and would like to hear it without such a musical understanding, I find it impossible. A door has been opened in my mind, a filter put in place, which unconsciously and relentlessly consumes data and presents it to me in the light of a newer understanding.\n(Perhaps over long periods of disuse, such abilities atrophy, as most American high school graduates\u0026rsquo; abilities with foreign languages indicate. Such a supposition is not relevant to my current point, however, since the language faculty in general, for example, will never fail to be exercised in any reasonably normative human environment. There is also the question of the effects of mental trauma or mind-altering drugs, which I take to be peripheral for this discussion.)\nThings become even more remarkable when we contrast a person who has knowledge of this kind with one who hasn\u0026rsquo;t. Say I am in Paris, and I see a large billboard advertisement consisting solely of well-formed French text. I don\u0026rsquo;t read French, but my friend standing next to me does. When we look at the billboard, he cannot fail to understand it, but I can\u0026rsquo;t possibly understand it! (I could hazard a guess as to its meaning, but that does not constitute understanding, even if I turn out to be right). We are experiencing identical physical stimuli, but are interpreting it in vastly different ways. Language is simply the most common of many possible examples\u0026ndash;we could think of many more. I want to emphasize how important an appreciation of this point is! It is essentially proof of the existence of meaning. I am not, of course, trying to prove that there is no physical explanation for the disparity in our reactions, merely that events and objects in the world hold meaning, which we may or may not even be able to detect given our knowledge and training. More importantly for the current discussion, once we can detect this layer of meaning (which may exist amid many strata of other meanings), we are unable to \u0026ldquo;turn it off,\u0026rdquo; so to speak. We cannot not detect that meaning. To belabor the point: I claim it not possible that any competent reader of English see the arrangement of letters \u0026ldquo;The grass is green\u0026rdquo; and not read (i.e., understand) it. While reading is not always tantamount to understanding, in such simple cases as \u0026ldquo;The grass is green,\u0026rdquo; to say that it is not is to deny that there is such a thing as a competent reader of English.\nSo, what is the point of all of this? We have established (a) There are forms of knowledge/skill which can add layers of \u0026ldquo;new\u0026rdquo; meaning or understanding to \u0026ldquo;old\u0026rdquo; physical phenomena, and (b) Many of these forms cannot be discarded at will; they are \u0026ldquo;sticky\u0026rdquo; in our consciousness. Most of the time, (a) and (b) combine for a very positive result\u0026ndash;it is wonderful that understanding of our native tongue comes so effortlessly! But the effortlessness can be unwanted: I learned to read as a child in Papua New Guinea, where there was no media, much less large billboard advertisements. When I returned to the US, I realized with a shock that I could not moderate the influx of words that were bombarding me from the side of the highway. The fire hose of information to which we are subjected every day is arguably unhealthy.\nBut there is another sense in which the effortlessness of using certain skills can be unwanted. That is when the particular layer of meaning unlocked by a new skill adds moral complication. Taking it for granted that knowledge in itself is neither good nor evil, the introduction of a new mode of interpreting reality can deliver unto us vast new landscapes of possibility for interaction with reality. These interactions, unfortunately, can be engaged in well or poorly. In other words, new understanding gives rise to new obligations and new responsibilities (and new ways to be evil), because as we all know, \u0026ldquo;Knowledge is power,\u0026rdquo; and power can be used for good or ill. So much is uncontroversial.\nAdd to this the previous observation that some of these layers of meaning, once unlocked, cannot be hidden, forgotten, or shoved into some back corner of the mind. Then, if a person were to unlock such a filter, but was not prepared in terms of character to handle the powerful responsibility which accompanied it, how much would she be battered and bruised by the potential for great evil she had unwittingly loosed! Of course, there is a hidden assumption here which is important: Maturity of character is a pre-requisite for good stewardship of certain kinds of knowledge. Some may argue that knowledge is the great enlightener, upon which no limits should be set in terms of its flow. Would that it were so! To our shame, many thousands of years of experience prove that perhaps humankind has not always been ready for the secrets it has uncovered. The use of atomic weapons is only the most recent in a long line of embarrassments. (It should obviously be said that knowledge per se is never the adversary\u0026ndash;it is always ourselves).\nNow we hark back to the earliest example of what I have been talking about\u0026ndash;that time or event symbolized by the story of the Fall in the biblical literature. Adam and Eve chose to be awakened to a certain kind of knowledge (in this first story, the knowledge provides understanding of the basic moral layer of reality, of the existence of good and evil themselves), and found themselves immediately both (a) doing evil and (b) experiencing shame. They were not, unfortunately, mature enough to handle the weight of a moral universe. This is what we mean by the loss of innocence, and they felt it deeply as psychological pain (as do we today).\nInnocence, then, is the state of ignorance preceding the addition of one of these \u0026ldquo;moral-epistemological layers\u0026rdquo; to an understanding of reality. If we agree with the foregoing moral considerations, we can also say that innocence is actually an appropriate state of ignorance, if the innocent\u0026rsquo;s character is not mature enough to wisely utilize the new knowledge. This in turn implies that there is both appropriate and inappropriate loss of innocence.\nThe most obvious example of both of these kinds of innocence loss takes place in the stratum of social reality we know as sexuality, because I take for granted the following: (1) There are events (of which engaging in sex is only one possible event) which serve to \u0026ldquo;unlock\u0026rdquo; an understanding of the sexual stratum. (2) This \u0026ldquo;unlocking\u0026rdquo; is of the type I\u0026rsquo;ve been describing, in terms of its permanent, welded nature in the understanding. That is, given normal social interaction, once one has come to realize the sexual nature of fellow humans, it is impossible to completely shut off such an awareness. (3) Sexual knowledge is furthermore the kind of knowledge which presents moral considerations; it is a prime example of knowledge which can be used well or poorly, for good or for ill. So, if those three claims hold, we can say that gaining sexual knowledge is an example of loss of innocence, and that it can be lost appropriately or inappropriately, depending on the character of the innocent, i.e., how prepared she is to not do evil as a result of such knowledge.\nI think it an uncontested fact that much evil is done, whether in thought or in deed (and those amount to the same thing in the limit), as a result of sexual knowledge. That fact alone suffices to prove that many people have lost their sexual innocence inappropriately. It is another question, of course, at whose feet we should lay the blame for such loss. Knowledge is sometimes given unasked for, and if inappropriate, woe to him who gives it! (Here I am not just thinking of the most obvious and horrible example of rape. A negligent father leaving Playboy magazines for his son to accidentally find fares no better morally).\nSo much for an example of innocence inappropriately lost. No doubt we could think of many others\u0026ndash;social, political, etc\u0026hellip; And I will bypass for now a discussion of sexual innocence lost appropriately, since such is probably rare (remember, we are not talking about sex per se, but an awareness, an understanding of what is possible given the constructs of meaning in a sexual reality).\nNow we come to the heart of this essay, which unfortunately is a question. We have all experienced the inappropriate loss of innocence in some stratum of reality or another. But what are we to do about it? How are we to put such situations to rights? The answer is of immense importance, not just for those (probably most of us if we are honest) who wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind having lost sexual innocence appropriately (or not at all yet), rather than inappropriately. As the story of the Fall shows, the question is the fundamental question of our humanity\u0026ndash;we ate of the tree, but were unable to digest the fruit. How are we then to return to our original purpose of naming and caring, loving and ruling the earth, while we are bent over double with the pains of knowledge?\nThe previous considerations are all used in unavoidably realizing that it can be no answer simply to try and forget. We cannot return\u0026ndash;we can never go back to Eden. The figurative flaming swords which bar its gates are simply reality itself\u0026ndash;we could no more re-open them than forget language! Innocence lost cannot be regained. What then? Shall we press on and make our best go at dealing with a moral reality we were not prepared to face? It has been our strategy since the beginning, but war upon war, evil upon evil pile higher and higher the dung on the heap we have made out of the world.\nUltimately, this is why I believe we need Christ. Not in some simplistic salvific sacrifice of divine blood appeasing the hunger of divine spirit, but because he both acknowledges the reality of innocence lost, and provides a solution. The solution is neither to go back (naivete) nor to stay where we are (cynicism/despair), but to move forward (hope). Christ is not the old Adam re-born, but the new Adam. Christ was not ignorant of good and evil, but rather so fully human that he was prepared to go through life with knowledge of them both, walking the knife-edge of good, effortlessly. That is why he can be our only exemplar\u0026ndash;not Adam, nor any of his line, but Christ.\nStill, to say that Christ is the solution is not to say how he will solve our dilemmas\u0026ndash;it is simply to provide a path. The path out of lust, for example, is not back to a pre-sexual ignorance, but further on to love. How exactly one must tread to follow that path successfully, I have not fully discovered. Still, I believe that for every innocence lost, there is a knowledge to be redeemed. If Christ was the only one who lived out that redemption, following him will be our only method of achieving it ourselves. Though this seems difficult, there is one more hope: if the knowledge by which we lose innocence is irreversible, it stands to reason that the character which we gain by its redemption is equally so. And then, not before our time, we will have finally become worthy of the knowledge we too quickly gained, and will no longer need fear it for what it can incite us to do. To put it in more cosmic terms: who knows how long it would have taken Adam and Eve to mature in character to the point where they could have partaken of the fruit safely. It will no doubt take us much longer to mature to that character while staggering under the load of its knowledge. But we can be sure that we can still get there! Christ himself is proof of that.\nSo, to sum up our tortuous path from philosophy to spirituality: First, there are many kinds of knowledge. Second, some of them cause an epistemological revolution which cannot be undone. Third, some of these epistemological revolutions can be harmful if we are not spiritually prepared for them, as the all-too-common loss of innocence in the stratum of sexuality proves. Fourth, in these losses it is impossible to retrace our steps and achieve the state of ignorance we once had. Fifth, it seems the only way out is ahead\u0026ndash;not to less knowledge (nor even to more) but to greater character (a worthiness for the gift of that knowledge). Here we run into the problem of how to progress to this more mature character, and we have our options of whom to follow on that score. I believe that Christ is the only one who actually consistently exhibited the kind of character which would be the result of our progress, and thus that he is the only one to whom we should listen for directions. Extrapolated cosmically: how can the world be spiritually transformed to be worthy of the knowledge it has attained (and thus to stop wars and oppression and extortion and rape and literally every evil which festers under the sun)? Submit to the guidance of Christ.\nHow that submission is maintained beyond the desire to make it is a mystery (just as is how one progresses resolutely from lust to love while in the throes of a ravishing sexual knowledge that bombards us with deliverances of the understanding we cannot assimilate without sinning). I would pay all I have and more to understand it! Though \u0026ldquo;follow me\u0026rdquo; is a simple enough command, its obedience could take us half a world away, up mountains and over rivers, or even into dark and seemingly treacherous places. That is why no more can be said in an essay, as much as I would like to read one with such contents myself. That is why we must, if we are to redeem our individual lost innocences, and indeed our corporate ones, listen with attentive ears and open hearts to the call of our First Brother in True Humanity.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/10/epistemology-innocence-and-the-spiritual-development-of-humanity-an-essay/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/adameve.jpg\"\u003eAs we go through life, we gain different kinds of knowledge. Sometimes this knowledge affects only a small part of our understanding of reality. When someone tells me that she ate pizza last night, such knowledge, ceteris paribus, does not effect any significant changes in my worldview. Some knowledge, the \u0026ldquo;knowing-how\u0026rdquo; kind of knowledge (what I call \u0026ldquo;skill\u0026rdquo;) is likewise worldview-ambivalent, in that after gaining such knowledge, our interpretation of events (our perception of their \u0026ldquo;meaning\u0026rdquo;) remains basically the same, except perhaps in a specific area. For example, learning how to use a computer program might allow me to understand the purpose behind actions of other people using the same program, but that knowledge does not affect the fundamental ways in which I perceive reality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the other hand, there \u003cem\u003eare\u003c/em\u003e certain kinds of knowledge, both knowledge-that and knowledge-how (both factual knowledge and skill), that \u003cem\u003edo\u003c/em\u003e fundamentally affect how we understand reality. As an example in the first category, take the knowledge that the earth is round. Our thought relationship to such objects as the sun, the moon, and the stars is completely different than that of people a thousand years ago, even though neither the sun, the moon, nor the stars have changed much. Examples in the second category can be found as well (which is what I will mainly be talking about).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo far, I have said nothing surprising. It could all have been stated more succinctly: \u0026ldquo;Some facts/skills are more important than others.\u0026rdquo; No doubt anyone would agree. Now I want to make an additional claim: some forms of knowledge are of a sort that, upon gaining, are entrenched so deeply in our mental frameworks that we cannot even coherently imagine seeing the universe in the same way as we did prior to gaining the knowledge. Here is where the skill examples come in. It is easy to imagine, on one hand, a flat earth, even while retaining the knowledge of its roundness. I can form a coherent picture of such an earth in my head. Now take a certain kind of skill\u0026ndash;being able to speak and understand English with the facility of a native speaker. Though I know it\u0026rsquo;s a completely coherent possibility that I see a well-formed English sentence while not understanding it, I can\u0026rsquo;t actually \u003cem\u003eimagine\u003c/em\u003e seeing a well-formed English sentence and not understanding it. Any time I imagine a well-formed English sentence, and look at the words, I cannot help but understand it. That is just what it \u003cem\u003eis\u003c/em\u003e to be a competent reader/listener of English!\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Epistemology, Innocence, and the Spiritual Development of Humanity (An Essay)"},{"content":"Near to the end of my trip in Geneva, I remembered that I had a video option on my digital camera, and randomly decided to take a short video at one of our dinners. It\u0026rsquo;s below.\nThe question of whether or not to post this video was somewhat difficult, mostly due to the sudden rampage of videos hosted on my friends\u0026rsquo; blog, TrippingOnWords. Claire and Lara recently started adding one or more video spots to most blog entries, and I challenged this decision, for the following reasons:\nVideo can be more stimulating, but less evocative, than text Video snippets are representative of pop culture at large and therefore should be avoided Once you go video, you can never go back\u0026ndash;readers will be shocked at text and drop like flies Putting up videos of yourselves (especially as two young, attractive, American, globe-trotting females) seems a cheap way to boost a readership The only problem is, the reasons I really felt bad about their videos were:\nTheir blog is more interesting than mine They are globe-trotting, and I am not (apart from a week here in Geneva) Their blog has many times the readership of mine The content of their videos, while not \u0026ldquo;good\u0026rdquo; in any technical sense, are the kind of things that people will find cool. They\u0026rsquo;re quirky, funny, and the poor quality and awkward dialogue just makes them that much more endearing In short: jealousy. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t watch those videos without feeling that somehow it should be me making hilarious comments while sucking coffee from a bag. Alas, the life I have chosen to write about on this weblog, while exciting, is not likely to make me reality TV\u0026rsquo;s next star. While that rankles my underlying and cynically-hidden desire for popularity, I guess I don\u0026rsquo;t need this weblog to be my vehicle to fame. Truly: I\u0026rsquo;d settle for its covert functioning as a singles ad! (Only that doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be going too well either)\nSo, the decision to post a video was hard, because (a) I wondered if I am just doing it out of jealousy, which seems bad, and (b) I have no intention of posting more videos, so I don\u0026rsquo;t want you to get accustomed to it. Remember, you didn\u0026rsquo;t come here for fancy, flashy visuals! You came here to hear me whine about myself\u0026hellip;oh\u0026hellip;\nBut in the end I was bored enough tonight to edit this together, and here it is for your viewing pleasure. Flaming Desserts: (for those using Bloglines, it may not show\u0026ndash;click here)\nNow a message for those girls over at TrippingOnWords: consider the fine polish of video workmanship (which causes this jewel of cinema to glimmer with the sheen of greatness) to be a gauntlet thrown down to the ground before you, challenging you to come forth with the best you can summon. It\u0026rsquo;s a duel! (And no help from outside experts allowed)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/09/geneva-2006-video-addendum/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eNear to the end of my trip in Geneva, I remembered that I had a video option on my digital camera, and randomly decided to take a short video at one of our dinners. It\u0026rsquo;s below.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe question of whether or not to post this video was somewhat difficult, mostly due to the sudden rampage of videos hosted on my friends\u0026rsquo; blog, \u003ca href=\"http://trippingonwords.blogspot.com\"\u003eTrippingOnWords\u003c/a\u003e. Claire and Lara recently started adding one or more video spots to most blog entries, and I challenged this decision, for the following reasons:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Geneva 2006 (Video Addendum)"},{"content":" If you want to skip right to the pictures, click here\nI just returned from Geneva, Switzerland\u0026ndash;a trip I decided to take a mere 3 weeks ago. Every year, my parents have a business trip in late September to some international location (for legal reasons, these meetings have to take place outside the US). Since I graduated high school in 2000 and chose to attend Stanford (a quarter school), I\u0026rsquo;ve had the good fortune to not be in class during these trips, and thus was able to tag along with my folks. We\u0026rsquo;ve been to some great places\u0026ndash;London (twice), Dublin, Lisbon, and Barcelona (after I graduated). I didn\u0026rsquo;t go on the 2005 trip, but since my work schedule permitted this year, I was able to go to Geneva. (For a few older blogs of such trips, see here for Lisbon 2002 and here for Barcelona 2004).\nThese trips are always fun, not least because I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten to know many of the other attendees, all great people. At times there have even been sons or daughters there like myself, and so there are often young people to hang out with, in addition to spending great time with my parents. My friend Laura was there, of this January\u0026rsquo;s Bahamas trip fame.\nThe group dinners are generally quite nice, and so it\u0026rsquo;s also fun to bring \u0026ldquo;dress-up\u0026rdquo; clothes to wear consistently. (I wore my suit this week for the first time since last December, I think). This trip was particularly special for me, however, because it happened that my 24th birthday was during the trip, and I had a wonderful time celebrating it with my parents and some friends, both at a spectacular dinner and later at our pub of choice, over fine cuban cigars and cognac. I certainly couldn\u0026rsquo;t ask for a better birthday experience, though I did miss my friends from home. As an extra special gift, my parents also let me use some of their airline upgrade coupons, so we all traveled to and from Geneva in business / first class. What luxury!\nI spent most of my time in Geneva sleeping, hanging out in our great hotel (the Hotel d\u0026rsquo;Angleterre), working out or using the sauna, catching up on my reading, or wandering around taking pictures and buying sandwiches using poor French. One tourist highlight was definitely the Patek Philippe museum, which had on exhibit some of the oldest and most complicated watches in the world. The sheer amount of time, love, and skill put into these objects by their craftsmen was literally awing. One complicated mechanical watch we saw had over 1800 unique parts, individually designed and produced and assembled. This watch, like some others in the exhibit, kept track of the time, of course, but also such measurements as the day, the week, the month, the year, the lunar phases, sidereal time, the location of certain stars in the sky, etc\u0026hellip; (taking into account leap years, etc..\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s guaranteed to be accurate for something like 500 years if kept wound).\nLife in Geneva appears to be very expensive, and the same was true of souvenirs. Accordingly, the only things I brought back were two beer glasses (one a .5L stein (Cardinal), and the other a Belgian snifter (Leffe)), both procured by my dad, free for the asking from bars. Incidentally, the beer of the trip was hands-down the Belgian Leffe (the blonde variety). It had a light color, a creamy texture, and a strong, sweet taste. It was not overpowering, though, and had a very strong spruce hops aroma which kept the whole thing dynamic and interesting. It probably now ranks in my top 5 beer list.\nWell, check out the pictures, and let me know what you think!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/09/geneva-2006/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/70046\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/geneva.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\nIf you want to skip right to the pictures, click \u003ca href=\"http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/70046\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI just returned from Geneva, Switzerland\u0026ndash;a trip I decided to take a mere 3 weeks ago. Every year, my parents have a business trip in late September to some international location (for legal reasons, these meetings have to take place outside the US). Since I graduated high school in 2000 and chose to attend Stanford (a quarter school), I\u0026rsquo;ve had the good fortune to not be in class during these trips, and thus was able to tag along with my folks. We\u0026rsquo;ve been to some great places\u0026ndash;London (twice), Dublin, Lisbon, and Barcelona (after I graduated). I didn\u0026rsquo;t go on the 2005 trip, but since my work schedule permitted this year, I was able to go to Geneva. (For a few older blogs of such trips, see \u003ca href=\"/2002/09/lisbon-2002/\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e for Lisbon 2002 and \u003ca href=\"/2005/01/the-rest-of-2004/\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e for Barcelona 2004).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Geneva 2006"},{"content":"Some random notes:\nFirst, in trying to assist Nyffy with his desire to one day become the Brewmaster of Heaven, a contingent of my friends spent some time this last weekend brewing a batch of Futurebeer:\nThe current state of Futurebeer\nFuturebeer is beer, after a while. It is not yet, however. It\u0026rsquo;s that same mysterious \u0026ldquo;already but not yet\u0026rdquo; we find with the kingdom of God. Anyway, it was fun to go through a process involving (mostly) natural ingredients that will culminate in pure enjoyment after a period of care and waiting. Being a creative person who works mostly with digital or musical media, I was very glad to work with actual substances to create a product. It\u0026rsquo;s sort of like the joy I have found in cooking nice meals, only greater due to the extended period of time involved in the process.\nSecond, I received in the mail from Amazon the first three books in NT Wright\u0026rsquo;s massive \u0026ldquo;Question of God\u0026rdquo; undertaking, beginning with The New Testament and the People of God. After hearing much about these works and reading some other stuff of Wright\u0026rsquo;s, I\u0026rsquo;m very excited to go on an extended journey of engagement with history, theology, and literary criticism on issues surrounding the origins of Christianity. Thankfully, I\u0026rsquo;ve finished Alister McGrath\u0026rsquo;s likewise-authoritative critical-realism-inspired trilogy on scientific theology, so I now have room for another expedition. You will no doubt be hearing various thoughts on the books here, which is why I thought I\u0026rsquo;d give forewarning. As a bit of a taste, here\u0026rsquo;s a paragraph from the introduction:\nThe New Testament has not been around as long as the land of Israel, but in other ways there are remarkable parallels. It is a small book, smaller than anybody else\u0026rsquo;s holy book, small enough to be read through in a day or two. But it has had an importance belied by its slim appearance. It has again and again been a battleground for warring armies. Sometimes they have come to plunder its streasures for their own use, or to annex bits of its territory as part of a larger empire in need of a few extra strategic mountains, especially holy ones. Somestimes they have come to fight their private battles on neutral territory, finding in the debates about a book or a passage a convenient place to stage a war which is really between two worldviews or philosophies, themselves comparatively unrelated to the New Testament and its concerns. There are many places whose fragile beauty has been trampled by heavy-footed exegetes in search of a Greek root, a quick sermon, or a political slogan. And yet it has remained a powerful and evocative book, full of delicacy and majesty, tears and laughter.\nWhat ought one to do with the New Testament? We may take it for granted that it will be no good trying to prevent its still being used as a battleground. No border fences would be strong enough to keep out the philosophers, the philologists, the politicians and the casual tourists; nor should we erect them if they were. There are many who have come to pilfer and have stayed to be pilgrims. To place all or part of this book within a sacred enclosure would be to invite a dominical rebuke: my house is to be a house of prayer for all the nations. Past attempts to keep it for one group only\u0026ndash;the take-over bids by the scholars and the pietists, the fundamentalists and the armchair social workers\u0026ndash;have ended with unseemly battles, the equivalent of the sad struggle for the control of Holy Places in the land of israel. This book is a book of wisdom for all peoples, but we have made it a den of scholarship, or of a narrow, hard and exclusive piety.\nInspiring, no?\nThird, I am going to Switzerland next week. I would like to get a good digital SLR camera before then. Anyone have one they want to sell? Or any recommendations?\nFourth, I wanted to upload something to YouTube, but only have 3 or 4 home videos on my computer. Only one happened to be appropriately flattering of myself, and since the purpose of the Internet is for people to upload flattering things, I chose to throw it in to the churning mill. It\u0026rsquo;s from last year in Costa Rica when Justin turned on the camera and told me to go catch a frisbee in the ocean. You can see the video here. After uploading I found many videos of real ultimate frisbee layouts, which were much more impressive. So watch those too.\nUntil next time, this has been your beer, academic theology, travel, and sports update. Cheers.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/09/futurebeer-nt-wright-and-frisbee-hype/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSome random notes:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst\u003c/strong\u003e, in trying to assist Nyffy with his desire to one day become the Brewmaster of Heaven, a contingent of my friends spent some time this last weekend brewing a batch of Futurebeer:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/futurebeer1.jpg\"\u003e\nThe current state of Futurebeer\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFuturebeer is beer, after a while. It is not yet, however. It\u0026rsquo;s that same mysterious \u0026ldquo;already but not yet\u0026rdquo; we find with the kingdom of God. Anyway, it was fun to go through a process involving (mostly) natural ingredients that will culminate in pure enjoyment after a period of care and waiting. Being a creative person who works mostly with digital or musical media, I was very glad to work with actual substances to create a product. It\u0026rsquo;s sort of like the joy I have found in cooking nice meals, only greater due to the extended period of time involved in the process.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Futurebeer, NT Wright, and Frisbee Hype"},{"content":"James 2 came to mind recently, and I was struck by how much I brushed it off, or thought it did not apply to me (or to our small church). I got to thinking about it, and decided that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t because it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t apply, only that the specific context in James\u0026rsquo; mind is not in our typical experience, and we thereby miss the message behind it. I decided to re-write a passage from the chapter using language and examples that would perhaps speak more clearly to us (or at least, to heterosexual men\u0026ndash;others can see where to change things for themselves. You\u0026rsquo;ll see what I mean in a moment). I find that re-writing passages in this way can be a useful \u0026ldquo;shock\u0026rdquo; mechanism to get ourselves thinking further away from the words of the text, and maybe closer to the meaning of the text. You can see an earlier example of this at my old weblog (though the point there is message through irony rather than message through revision).\nFirst, I\u0026rsquo;ll show you James 2:1-13 in the ESV:\n2:1My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. 2For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, 3and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” 4have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? 7Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?\n8If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.\nNow, here is my version (the \u0026ldquo;Modern American Version\u0026rdquo;):\n2:1My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don\u0026rsquo;t show favoritism. 2Suppose a girl comes into your meeting with an attractive face and body, wearing flattering clothes, and an unattractive girl also comes in. 3If you show special attention to the girl with the sexy physique and say, \u0026ldquo;Here, sit next to me,\u0026rdquo; but say nothing at all to the unattractive girl, or fail to pay her as much attention, 4have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?\n5Listen, my dear brothers: has not God chosen those who are unattractive in the eyes of western men to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6But you have insulted women. Is it not this cultural system of constant physical appraisal and criticism which is exploiting you? Is it not what is keeping you from loving your neighbors? 7 Is it not exactly what is separating you from truly bearing the noble name of him to whom you belong?\n8If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, \u0026ldquo;Love your neighbor as yourself,\u0026rdquo; you are doing right. 9But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10For whoever keeps the whole law and yet treats an attractive woman with favoritism is guilty of breaking all of it. 11For he who said, \u0026ldquo;Do not commit adultery,\u0026rdquo; also said, \u0026ldquo;What is it to you if you love those who love you?\u0026rdquo; If you do not commit adultery but still only love the lovely, you have become a lawbreaker.\n12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!\nPhrased that way, it is much easier (for me, anyway) to feel the sharpness of what James was telling the church. But maybe it is only because I definitely struggle with falling into that game. What do you think?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/08/james-21-13-modern-american-version/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eJames 2 came to mind recently, and I was struck by how much I brushed it off, or thought it did not apply to me (or to our small church). I got to thinking about it, and decided that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t because it \u003cem\u003eshouldn\u0026rsquo;t\u003c/em\u003e apply, only that the specific context in James\u0026rsquo; mind is not in our typical experience, and we thereby miss the message behind it. I decided to re-write a passage from the chapter using language and examples that would perhaps speak more clearly to us (or at least, to heterosexual men\u0026ndash;others can see where to change things for themselves. You\u0026rsquo;ll see what I mean in a moment). I find that re-writing passages in this way can be a useful \u0026ldquo;shock\u0026rdquo; mechanism to get ourselves thinking further away from the words of the text, and maybe closer to the meaning of the text. You can see an \u003ca href=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/weblog/archives/2005/02/acts_24247_mode.php\"\u003eearlier example\u003c/a\u003e of this at my old weblog (though the point there is message through irony rather than message through revision).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst, I\u0026rsquo;ll show you James 2:1-13 in the ESV:\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"James 2:1-13 (Modern American Version)"},{"content":"Last weekend, our small church community went on a retreat to a place in San Francisco. As a major part of the time, each person had one or more pieces of art to present on the subject of her \u0026ldquo;deepest dream(s)\u0026rdquo;. The idea was that something prepared in advance on that subject, then later presented and discussed, would provide an interesting, focused, and perhaps vulnerable manner of getting to know one another more intimately. When I started working on my own art a couple weeks ago, I found that having a deadline for the creative process actually made me quite fruitful, and I ended up having three songs and the start of a short story / novel to share.\nI won\u0026rsquo;t talk about two of the songs, the novel, or what dreams they represented, at this moment, because they will no doubt receive special treatment when they are recorded / completed. I did, however, want to share one song, an instrumental piece I composed in Logic with my keyboard. The composition took over many long nights, zoned out hammering keys, headphones pressing a wide canyon in the top of my skull.\nEven all the way through the retreat the song had remained unnamed, but now that I have had some time to think on it, I have decided to call it \u0026ldquo;The Wayfaring Aesthete Engages the Road in Conversation\u0026rdquo;. (Originally, it was supposed to be called \u0026ldquo;ReCreation\u0026rdquo;, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to inflict on it too great a connection with this weblog, and the storied nature of the final name is much more appropriate).\nThe dream of mine which corresponded to this particular work was that of creating/designing objects/experiences which faithfully and reliably transmit emotion. In a word, \u0026ldquo;evoking\u0026rdquo;. I long to evoke responses in others the way that good art evokes incredibly deep emotional responses in me. I treasure those experiences as gifts, and desire to give such gifts to others as well.\nClick on the link below to download the iTunes-format version of the song. (The picture is a screenshot of the song\u0026rsquo;s timeline, with its various instruments).\nThe Wayfaring Aesthete Engages the Road in Conversation\nLet me know what you think. Friends who were with us on the retreat\u0026ndash;I encourage you to likewise post your creations, which were all excellent!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/08/the-wayfaring-aesthete/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast weekend, our small church community went on a retreat to a place in San Francisco. As a major part of the time, each person had one or more pieces of art to present on the subject of her \u0026ldquo;deepest dream(s)\u0026rdquo;. The idea was that something prepared in advance on that subject, then later presented and discussed, would provide an interesting, focused, and perhaps vulnerable manner of getting to know one another more intimately. When I started working on my own art a couple weeks ago, I found that having a deadline for the creative process actually made me quite fruitful, and I ended up having three songs and the start of a short story / novel to share.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Wayfaring Aesthete"},{"content":"Anyone who has been around this weblog for long enough has realized that I care a lot about mainly two categories of things. The first is Girls, and specifically how to entice an especially awesome, as-yet-unpinpointed one to eventually marry me. The second is The Stuff I Am Passionate About. This second category is usually seen in long diatribes about how I have so many passions that the thought of finding one thing to do in my life (my life\u0026rsquo;s project, so to speak) is incredibly daunting. I usually think of such pursuits as falling under one of the following headings: Philosophy, Theology, Music, Language, Coding, Writing, or Design. Importantly, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in the creative elements of each.\nI often laugh derisively at any suggestion that these things could be combined into a single role or project; for what pursuit can bring together such disparate fields as philosophy and computer programming, not to mention the others? It struck me today that maybe there is such a project: the design and implementation of a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), of which the current most popular example is World of Warcraft.\nClearly, since a MMORPG is a piece of software, it involves coding. But it also involves World Design\u0026ndash;the overarching story and history of a fantastical place (a la The Silmarillion, my favorite book). Clearly creating such an immersive world involves a foray into philosophy (and probably theology, since worlds without magic or arcane technology are boring). Beyond that, what can provide more immersion than Tolkien\u0026rsquo;s strategy of language creation? Of course, histories of entire civilizations and languages need to be conveyed in as powerful and encompassing wording as possible, thus requiring a skilled writer. Finally, what is a venture into an unknown world without the appropriate stunning visual and audio design? The score would need to be more immense than any 2-hour movie.\nWell, there it is! It doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem like anything important is missing. And it certainly explains my fascination with the concepts behind MMORPGs in the first place. Unfortunately, I don\u0026rsquo;t know that working for a MMO house would be fulfilling at all to me; curiously, I don\u0026rsquo;t know why. I certainly don\u0026rsquo;t think that a life spent to encourage the use of the imagination is wasted\u0026ndash;Tolkien and Lewis are my heroes precisely for that reason. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just that my experience with MMORPG culture has made me doubt whether the kind of imagination encouraged is actually of any enduring value. I suppose that at the end of the day I do believe that imagination has a function\u0026ndash;that of re-envisioning a broken and fractured reality\u0026ndash;and I don\u0026rsquo;t know that World of Warcraft really inspires this, rather than a mindless grind for powerful virtual items that give one a sense of superiority over other players.\nMaybe that\u0026rsquo;s the difference between The Silmarillion and World of Warcraft\u0026ndash;since The Silmarillion is a story, it asks you to enter in and wander around by yourself, unlocking experiences with the imagination. Warcraft, on the other hand, is unavoidably a game, and one not of collaborative imagination as often as competitive un-imagination. (What I mean by unimagination is that many players purposefully de-mystify any imaginative elements in MMORPGs, reducing it to the underlying code systems, so that they might more easily \u0026ldquo;win\u0026rdquo; the game. My motivations in playing MMORPGs, on the other hand, are generally rather to have an immersive, imaginative experience). Perhaps there are ways to create a game like this; perhaps that is what real-life role-playing groups find attractive about their sessions (which frankly don\u0026rsquo;t appeal to me, for some reason); however, I doubt that, even given the possibility of designing such a game, that the result would be compelling to enough people to build a multi-million-dollar franchise on top of (which seems to be the point of most computer games).\nBut what do you think, O Reader? Should I go try and get hired by Blizzard? I haven\u0026rsquo;t said anything about the physical pursuits I enjoy (which are also many), or about any actual positive results of work for the poorer and more downtrodden in the world (who might not be able to afford my computer game). What is there to say about that? (But note that I\u0026rsquo;m not asking the question, \u0026ldquo;Was Tolkien wrong in writing his novels when he could have been helping poor children elsewhere, very materially?\u0026rdquo; since I take it for granted that the answer\u0026rsquo;s no.)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/08/my-holy-grail-at-last/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAnyone who has been around this weblog for long enough has realized that I care a lot about mainly two categories of things. The first is Girls, and specifically how to entice an especially awesome, as-yet-unpinpointed one to eventually marry me. The second is The Stuff I Am Passionate About. This second category is usually seen in long diatribes about how I have so many passions that the thought of finding one thing to do in my life (my life\u0026rsquo;s project, so to speak) is incredibly daunting. I usually think of such pursuits as falling under one of the following headings: Philosophy, Theology, Music, Language, Coding, Writing, or Design. Importantly, I\u0026rsquo;m interested in the creative elements of each.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"My Holy Grail, At Last?"},{"content":"(or, reactions after seeing M Night Shyamalan\u0026rsquo;s highly-recommended new film Lady in the Water twice in one weekend):\nThe problem with good stories is that we cannot always live in them (barring the \u0026ldquo;good story\u0026rdquo; which is hopefully and supposedly the whole of our life\u0026ndash;but right now I\u0026rsquo;m talking about good fiction stories; the kind that make you wish they were real). The problem with the best stories is their singularity of message: \u0026ldquo;Good stories are real! Believe in them!\u0026rdquo; And of course, they\u0026rsquo;re not real either, strictly speaking. There are no narphs and scrunts lurking round small ponds in my hometown, waiting to magically awaken greatness in me via some ancient link.\nEven so, the problem has rather more to do with their truth than falsity. When I look soberly at reality I don\u0026rsquo;t find the details of Lady in the Water or The Silmarillion or Le Morte d\u0026rsquo;Artur, but on the other hand I do suppose that I believe reality really is something like those stories, at the end of the day. Reality involves things other than what we can see; reality involves hidden purposes and identities meant to be discovered; reality involves the endowing of normal human beings with abilities that, to someone from a different world, might seem magical.\nNo, the problem is not with the absence of \u0026ldquo;magic\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;the problem is with my inability to see everything around me for what it really is (magical). And so I leave a good story feeling a sense of indescribable, desperate longing for something more exciting, more adventurous, more exotic, more epic, more fantastic, while steadfastly refusing to consider that if I were in one of those other worlds, I would be wishing the exact same thing, and a great bard of that place who told a story of Earth, her creation, the way that life springs from the very ground, and so on, would inspire me to dream great things. So the question becomes: how can we re-enchant this world? How can we de-familiarize ourselves from the radically \u0026ldquo;magical\u0026rdquo; events taking place around us always? It is not easy, and that is why we tell stories\u0026ndash;to keep that sense alive somehow. But the result is that unfortunately I begin to desire the reality of the stories more than the reality of the real, based on unfair judgements of the real!\nAlas, for now, I will keep running off to hear stories of marvelous and far-off worlds just to remind myself that such things are worth holding on to; but I hope that, instead of becoming depressed after hearing a good story and mourning the \u0026ldquo;death of the miraculous\u0026rdquo; in modern culture, I would learn to perceive the miraculous more easily all around. Clearly there is a tension here with my deeply-embedded scientific impulse to categorize and define; to resolve it I hope to be able to know both what a thing is and what a thing means. (In other words, the problem is not with any kind of scientific impulse per se, but rather the presumption of saying that knowledge of a thing\u0026rsquo;s true identity and significance can be adequately captured by scientific experimentation).\nNonetheless, we should re-establish frequent storytelling as a way to convey the deep truths of reality, even and especially if the best way to convey those truths is to speak of things like magical lands and mythical beings. Remember one of the most powerful lines from V for Vendetta: \u0026ldquo;Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians cover it up\u0026rdquo;.\nOn the storyteller\u0026rsquo;s end, let us become adept at using such \u0026ldquo;lies\u0026rdquo; to tell the truth of a wonderful reality, but on the listener\u0026rsquo;s end, let us be adept at loving not the \u0026ldquo;lie\u0026rdquo; in virtue of its brilliant and captivating colors, but rather the even more brilliant and more captivating truth it (hopefully) conveys. For those like myself who love to live in the imagination, that second part will prove to be the harder of the two\u0026hellip; But I personally hope the other side of that coin leads to an increased ability to tell the truth in story (the first part).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/07/the-perils-of-good-storytelling/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(or, reactions after seeing M Night Shyamalan\u0026rsquo;s highly-recommended new film \u003cem\u003eLady in the Water\u003c/em\u003e twice in one weekend):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe problem with good stories is that we cannot always live in them (barring the \u0026ldquo;good story\u0026rdquo; which is hopefully and supposedly the whole of our life\u0026ndash;but right now I\u0026rsquo;m talking about good \u003cem\u003efiction\u003c/em\u003e stories; the kind that make you wish they were real). The problem with the best stories is their singularity of message: \u0026ldquo;Good stories \u003cem\u003eare\u003c/em\u003e real! Believe in them!\u0026rdquo; And of course, they\u0026rsquo;re not real either, strictly speaking. There are no \u003cem\u003enarphs\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003escrunts\u003c/em\u003e lurking round small ponds in my hometown, waiting to magically awaken greatness in me via some ancient link.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Perils of Good Storytelling"},{"content":"Well, this is the longest hiatus I\u0026rsquo;ve ever had on this blog so far, but I won\u0026rsquo;t say it\u0026rsquo;s without reason. Still, there are many times I wish I\u0026rsquo;d had the space to catalogue some thoughts. The best I can do now is give a list of the sort of things I\u0026rsquo;ve been up to over the past months (with pictures!). Hopefully you\u0026rsquo;ll find some of it interesting.\nIn roughly chronological order:\nI went to Colorado for the Oltrogge family reunion (that\u0026rsquo;s my mom\u0026rsquo;s side). We spent most of our time out in the mountains near Winter Park. It was great to reconnect with family I hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen in a long time, and see places of importance from the past (my great-grand-relations were more or less ranchers in the mountains of Colorado, which I suppose I knew but never really considered). One day we took a drive through Rocky Mountain National Park, and it was breathtaking:\nThe day I returned from Denver, I hopped in Trent\u0026rsquo;s car, and we drove down to Santa Barbara in order to prepare for his upcoming bachelor party in Mexico. The following day, we caravanned south, through dreaded LA, San Diego, and across the border. Our destination was 30 miles south at a hotel called \u0026ldquo;La Fonda\u0026rdquo;, where we had an intensely awesome weekend with close on 40 guys. Highlights included \u0026ldquo;La Fonda Trifecta\u0026rdquo; (a very serious volleyball, horseshoes, and bocce ball tournament, in which my team got 2nd place), eating every meal in the hotel restaurant which was set on a cliff overlooking the ocean, unlimited margaritas and beer, shooting very dangerous rockets into hotel rooms from the beach (accidentally?), and 18 holes of beautiful ocean-side golf (at which I sucked very badly).\nLa Fonda from the beach\nOur base of operations\nOne of many beautiful sunsets\nUpon return from Mexico, I noticed that my Powerbook was not charging correctly\u0026ndash;one of my batteries was dead and the computer would not run with it in, or charge it. With another battery in place, the computer would run, but the battery would not charge. After a phone call to Apple support, during which they had me press many combinations of buttons, the computer would no longer start at all, regardless of battery or adapter state. This was worrisome, because everything that I create or produce, whether for work or otherwise, is done on that computer. So Apple said they would fix it, and sent me a box in which to mail the computer to them. Of course, I foolishly hadn\u0026rsquo;t made a backup of my hard drive before talking to Apple on the phone, and they make no guarantees that your hard drive will not be wiped, so I was in a pickle. While figuring that out, I began using my PC laptop for e-mail and such things. Less than 24 hours after my Powerbook died, my PC hard drive inexplicably started making loud clicking noises, and died. The BIOS couldn\u0026rsquo;t even recognize it in order to format it. Thus a week went by computer-less while I tried to figure out how to get the data off my Powerbook drive before sending it to Apple. In the end, I bought a small hard drive enclosure, took apart my Powerbook and got the drive out, put it in the enclosure, and was able to use a friend\u0026rsquo;s computer to transfer data from the enclosed laptop drive to my backup drive. (After I bought one enclosure which was faulty, of course, causing me to fear my data had been lost forever).\nAs it turns out, it\u0026rsquo;s kind of a delicate and time-consuming process to open up a Powerbook\nIn the middle of the computer fiasco, a couple cool things happened. First, I got a CD in the mail from my brother, which happened to be significant because it was the final mix of our most recent album, Hope (A Sliver, Like The Moon). Finally, months of hard work was over, and we had 6 kick-ass songs done! I look forward to pointing to some songs from here as soon as some non-recording type work is finished. Also, we\u0026rsquo;ve persuaded the design skillz master Chris Nyffeler himself to once again work on cover art for us. Stay tuned for more information.\nI also went with Dan to Tuolumne (in Yosemite) to tackle a climb we\u0026rsquo;d been thinking about doing for a while. It was called Regular Route, on Fairview Dome. It was 12 pitches to the top, most of which were technically easy, but some of which were quite challenging for me (it didn\u0026rsquo;t help that some residual snowmelt in the cracks meant for some slippery climbing at points), partly in virtue of the endurance, partly in virtue of the techniques required (much of it was crack climbing / laybacking, which I have not done much of).\nLooking up at the second pitch, you can see Dan as the tiny orange blur near the middle\nAll in all, it was the best outdoor climb I\u0026rsquo;ve done, with some very memorable parts, including a 5.9 roof move, which, when performed 500 feet above the deck, was exhilirating. The last couple pitches were simul-climbed, which I\u0026rsquo;ve also never done before, and so required a great deal of concentration and focus. We took almost 7 hours to do the climb, but it was a beautiful day (I alternated between being cold and hot, so I suppose the temperature was ideal) and was exceedingly memorable.\nRecovering on the top, before the walk down the backside of the dome\nOne of many incredible views from the top\nAfter returning from Yosemite, I conscripted my parents and sister, who were all at our place in SF, to come down to Palo Alto and help me put together my new room. I had been living with 4 other guys, but one was getting married and had moved out, so I no longer had to share a room with Justin. Glorious freedom was mine! I was excited about the prospects of designing my own space, and with the help of my parents and the local Ikea, I dare say we\u0026rsquo;ve created a very functional masterpiece in the small space.\nThe all-important reading area: bookshelf, chair, light, and a place to put a cold beverage\nThe under-the-lofted-bed desk, with record player + LPs, my \u0026ldquo;mega-amp\u0026rdquo;, importantly-displayed tobacco paraphernalia, bike storage, keyboard, and place to work on a computer or write\nThe piece-de-resistance: track lighting from Ikea that I installed! I love track lighting with a passion\nThe day we put my room together, I went back up to SF to prepare to travel once more\u0026ndash;this time back to Denver for Trent and Natalie\u0026rsquo;s wedding. I had the honor of being in the (very large) wedding party, and so the weekend was full of meaningful and fun events, as can only be mixed appropriately when two families come together who dearly love both God and light-hearted enjoyment. The wedding ceremony itself was somewhat haphazard, involving a reluctant flower girl, a forgetful minister, a fainting bridesmaid, and an ill-timed best man\u0026rsquo;s joke, but such variegations were soon forgotten, and the reception was what one might call \u0026ldquo;epic\u0026rdquo;. Between the unlimited Fat Tire on draft and the many hours of dancing in the company of friends old and new, the night was both tiring and satisfying\u0026ndash;not to mention the pleasure felt to see to great friends begin a new life together. The day after was occupied with the World Cup final, which many of us watched at a crowded ESPN bar in downtown Denver. France, unfortunately, did not win (Zidane??), which gave me the honor of claiming a very improbable personal statistic: in 100% of World Cup games for which I actually desired that the winner be a specific country, the other country emerged victorious. I should have bet some money against myself! Of course, it felt weird to not have more World Cup games to look forward to, seeing as it had occupied so much of my time.\nSince the wedding I have spent my days somewhat less hectically: enjoying the summer, working, and going frequently to the climbing gym. Most of my free time has been taken up with learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails, to further the breadth of my coding knowledge and experience.\nBooks: Importantly, I finally finished Alister McGrath\u0026rsquo;s Scientific Theology trilogy, consisting of Nature, Reality, and Theory. This is one of the more significant works from the perspective of Christian theology which I have ever read. I hope to be able to do an extended review at some point, but for now let\u0026rsquo;s just say I was extremely glad to deal for an extended length of time with issues at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and science. More than anyone I have read, Alister remains faithful to the central insights of all three disciplines. Remember, we have his Faith \u0026amp; Science course available here at Teleios. I also picked up and read Graham Tomlin\u0026rsquo;s The Provocative Church, which I\u0026rsquo;ve been meaning to go through for years. I was present at the Teleios course he taught on the same subject, but had never read the book. I was immensely glad I did, and anyone interested in evangelism, postmodernity, the heart of \u0026ldquo;church\u0026rdquo;, or church formation should read it. On a lighter note, I\u0026rsquo;ve started the last book of Susan Cooper\u0026rsquo;s The Dark is Rising Sequence\u0026ndash;a children\u0026rsquo;s fantasy series which I hadn\u0026rsquo;t read since 3rd grade, but had remembered to be excellent. Apparently my taste was good back then too, and I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed being immersed for short periods of time in a world which existed only in my vague childhood memory. Finally (in books), Nyffy and I are almost done reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince out loud (a project we started last summer when the book came out). There was a long hiatus, but we\u0026rsquo;re back at it, and trying to remember who all the characters are. We\u0026rsquo;re near the end, and some very shocking things have happened, which we\u0026rsquo;re not sure about.\nMusic: the summer has been good for new music, and I took that opportunity to make a 2-disc compilation for my friends showcasing such new music (and various other tracks particularly appropriate for summer listening, even if from years past). I\u0026rsquo;m very proud of the compilation, which I called \u0026ldquo;Summer of Rock\u0026rdquo;. Anyway, here\u0026rsquo;s a short list of some bands that have new albums I\u0026rsquo;ve enjoyed this summer: Band of Horses, Built to Spill, Dashboard Confessional, David Bazan, the Flaming Lips, Josh Ritter, Mat Kearney, Snow Patrol, Splendour Hyaline (!), Stars, The Stills, and Thrice. Check them out!\nAnd there you have it. Summer 2006, so far. Hopefully various non-event-list-type entries coming soon. Thanks for reading!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/07/lame-catch-up-entry-summer-2006/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, this is the longest hiatus I\u0026rsquo;ve ever had on this blog so far, but I won\u0026rsquo;t say it\u0026rsquo;s without reason. Still, there are many times I wish I\u0026rsquo;d had the space to catalogue some thoughts. The best I can do now is give a list of the sort of things I\u0026rsquo;ve been up to over the past months (with pictures!). Hopefully you\u0026rsquo;ll find some of it interesting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn roughly chronological order:\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Lame Catch-up Entry, Summer 2006"},{"content":"The sun stared, lidless and relentless, down at the dust and sand I slowly traversed. The town that baked there was hardly deserving of any name connoting civilization, much less that desert wayfarer\u0026rsquo;s dream-word, \u0026ldquo;oasis\u0026rdquo;. No waving palm trees; no pools of cool water to waste on dry and cracked feet. Still, to anyone like myself who had somehow survived even a brief stay in the arid deserts (in the quest for companionship), the low huts that provided shade were as welcome as Eden itself.\nI sat down against a wall in the center of the town. No one moved about in the heat of the day; for all I knew, the entire town had been wiped out by a sandstorm. I lowered my head and fell instantly asleep.\nWhen I awoke the sun was still high in the sky. I sensed a presence next to me and turned my head. A man was sitting there silent, dressed in white, and with an intricately-knotted turban that topped a wizened face. He looked at me, then wordlessly offered a waterskin. Such gifts are not to be questioned, and so I drank a few gulps, handing the waterskin back and touching my forehead in thanks. He turned and looked at me fully then, and I saw that his right eye, which had been hidden before, was not an eye but a star. He nodded, apparently to himself, and leaned back against the wall, hiding the curious eye.\n\u0026ldquo;You are an idealist,\u0026rdquo; he said suddenly in a deep, gravelly voice.\nHe was right. That was why I was half-dead in the desert.\n\u0026ldquo;How can you tell?\u0026rdquo; I asked. The barest hint of a smile touched the man\u0026rsquo;s face and his left eye closed. He inhaled deeply. \u0026ldquo;I can tell,\u0026rdquo; he said. I let it pass. I didn\u0026rsquo;t bother to ask why he had initiated a conversation. I had learned that words have a way of multiplying themselves needlessly, and I did not want to start such a cycle. Besides, energy and breath were precious commodities. If the man had a purpose in talking to me, it would become plain in time. If not, the gift of water had bought the man my patience for as long as he wanted it.\nI had not long to wait.\n\u0026ldquo;So, idealist: what is idealism?\u0026rdquo;\nIt did not surprise me in the least that the nature of the conversation I was engaged in with a strange man in the middle of a desert was philosophical. I had learned that a test of any kind might arrive at any moment. I considered carefully. Though I knew I was an idealist, I didn\u0026rsquo;t know exactly what it was, or how to explain the force that had driven me here. I struck on an answer born from my own experience.\n\u0026ldquo;Idealism in a sphere is the willingness to sacrifice everything that others consider important for an object of that sphere.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Why sacrifice?\u0026rdquo; He asked, pausing for a moment before the word \u0026ldquo;sacrifice\u0026rdquo;, as if to inspire doubt. I thought for another moment.\n\u0026ldquo;Because sacrifice is where what is ideal (belonging to the realm of ideas) is turned into what is real. Thus, since ideas can only affect when made real, anyone who seeks to be a true idealist must sacrifice to make the bind between the two realms. Otherwise, the individual is a false idealist, that is to say, not an idealist at all. We conclude that ideal ism in a sphere, namely the system which defines the exemplar of a true idealist of that sphere, involves not just sacrifice, but indeed the sacrifice of everything.\u0026rdquo;\nI cursed myself for using so many words, but the man smiled more perceptibly than before. He stood up and dusted off his white robes. He looked down at me, and again I saw the star which gleamed in the place of his right eye.\n\u0026ldquo;Well said. Now I will leave you with a question. The object (of the sphere in which you are an idealist) you seek; are you prepared to sacrifice everything for it?\u0026rdquo;\nI was confused as to the point of the question, but not its answer: \u0026ldquo;Yes. That is why I am an idealist.\u0026rdquo;\nThe man smiled again, and his face softened, but looked more melancholy for it.\n\u0026ldquo;Are you prepared to sacrifice idealism itself?\u0026rdquo;\nIdealism itself? I paused, then reeled, then recovered. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s impossible,\u0026rdquo; I said. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s self-defeating.\u0026rdquo;\nThe man nodded, and a pain grew in his left eye while the star in his right pulsed and throbbed. He looked at me, somehow more deeply, and the star felt sharper in my mind than any gaze.\n\u0026ldquo;I know,\u0026rdquo; he whispered, like the sound of sand blowing across stone. Then he cupped his hands in the sign of farewell and walked into the roiling glare of the afternoon. After a few steps he glimmered like a mirage, and I saw him no more.\nWhich was more the paradox: the man, or the message? I sat in stunned silence for a long time, inscribing the exchange on the tablet of my soul, before slowly standing up. I looked uncertainly in different directions, and hesitated for a brief moment. I looked at my hands. Then I stepped into the sun.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/06/the-longest-distance-between-two-points/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe sun stared, lidless and relentless, down at the dust and sand I slowly traversed. The town that baked there was hardly deserving of any name connoting civilization, much less that desert wayfarer\u0026rsquo;s dream-word, \u0026ldquo;oasis\u0026rdquo;. No waving palm trees; no pools of cool water to waste on dry and cracked feet. Still, to anyone like myself who had somehow survived even a brief stay in the arid deserts (in the quest for companionship), the low huts that provided shade were as welcome as Eden itself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI sat down against a wall in the center of the town. No one moved about in the heat of the day; for all I knew, the entire town had been wiped out by a sandstorm. I lowered my head and fell instantly asleep.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"The Longest Distance Between Two Points"},{"content":" Point A: Martini, Headphones on, Headphones off, Glass table, ticking Clock, curious Hope, sneaking Glances | | | 20\u0026#39; | | v Point B: Two people hanging over Space, City noise, A man telling a woman he Loves her, A Pure smile, Decades ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/06/the-shortest-distance-between-two-points/","summary":"\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"highlight\"\u003e\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\" style=\"color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4;-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;\"\u003e\u003ccode class=\"language-fallback\" data-lang=\"fallback\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePoint A:\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMartini,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHeadphones on,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHeadphones off,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGlass table,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eticking Clock,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ecurious Hope,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003esneaking Glances\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e|\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e|\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e|\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e20\u0026#39;\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e|\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e|\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ev\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePoint B:\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTwo people hanging over Space,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCity noise,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA man telling a woman he Loves her,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA Pure smile,\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDecades\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"The Shortest Distance Between Two Points"},{"content":"Last night I went back to the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco for the second time this month, to see the Smoking Popes / Lovedrug show. It was an incredible experience, and I realized something about myself that is important to share (and might also be an important contribution to Rock Theory in general).\nGratuitous picture to get you to read further: Lovedrug\u0026rsquo;s symbol of the moment\nBasically, I discovered that, for every reasonable length of time, there is a corresponding \u0026ldquo;rock \u0026rsquo;n roll quota\u0026rdquo;, which I am calling the \u0026ldquo;quota of rock\u0026rdquo;, that needs to be met. I am here defining \u0026ldquo;rock\u0026rdquo; as an experience I have wherein I am able to \u0026ldquo;rock out\u0026rdquo; for an extended amount of time to music that I am not playing myself. (There is also a \u0026ldquo;quota of my rock\u0026rdquo;, but we\u0026rsquo;re not talking about that).\nTo \u0026ldquo;rock out\u0026rdquo; means to have an irresistible physical response to certain types of music, involving:\nMotion of the feet (but not so much motion as to be called \u0026ldquo;dancing\u0026rdquo;, usually). The traditional motion would be described as a slight raising and lowering of the heel, giving the impression of a runner being restrained to very small movements. Most people perform this motion in time with the basic beat of the song, but I like to get a little more complicated and mirror any further drum work with not just my heels (though they\u0026rsquo;re the more important part) but also the toes. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure how this looks to other people, but the great thing about \u0026ldquo;rocking out\u0026rdquo; is that, as a very basic method of dancing, no one really cares. Motion of the upper torso and head. Many people would call this \u0026ldquo;head-banging\u0026rdquo;, but it is in fact somewhat more nuanced (though, to be fair, it probably did evolve, as a more laid-back / adult / shoegazer form, from head-banging). The primary thing here is that the head needs to \u0026ldquo;bob\u0026rdquo; in time with the music, and needs to be forward and down on the downbeat. In quieter parts of the song, the head and neck are alone in this motion, but with crescendoes in the phrasing or volume, the upper torso gets involved as well. During particularly loud or violent parts of songs, the whole upper body could be seen to exhibit quite a range of forward-and-back (\u0026ldquo;rock\u0026rdquo;-ing) motion. If the music calls for it (i.e., if there is a part of the song which is particularly moving or emotional to the rocker), various side-to-side motions might be added. Typically this is done first with the head\u0026ndash;but it\u0026rsquo;s important to note that any swaying is in addition to the forward-and-back rocking, not instead of it. In more punk-style crowds, or if there is a piano - fortissimo transition (as when a rock band might suddenly halt all noise on the downbeat of 3 in 4/4 time, providing a silent tension, and then come crashing in on the next 1), you might also come across jumping motions. Again, these are simple up-and-down motions that go along with the base beats of the song. In the punk-style crowds, the jumping is accompanied by certain hand motions, but I mostly stay away from these\u0026ndash;I like to keep the feeling of a tense core, taught but fluid. In line with the last thought, hands are infrequently used in rocking out. For me, they typically remain in the pockets, or if I\u0026rsquo;m feeling like a change is needed, they can be brought out and crossed across my chest. Once in a while, if I\u0026rsquo;m in a more emo mood, the hands can be used as drumsticks on the chest. Let that suffice for rocking out, in general. For me, however, there is another very important element to rocking out which isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily universally shared: singing along. Certain environmental attributes need to be in place for singing along to be valid, but the most important of which is that the music needs to be loud enough so that, when singing at max volume, my voice is still relatively quiet enough not to affect other concert-goers\u0026rsquo; experience. I don\u0026rsquo;t mean that they shouldn\u0026rsquo;t hear me at all, but rather that my personal rock contribution would mix well with what is coming from the speakers. In fact, I myself like to hear those next to me singing as well\u0026ndash;it gives a sense of unity and solidarity\u0026hellip;there is nothing quite like rocking out with a group of good friends. There are those, less-initiated perhaps, who go to shows and become indignant when the rest of the crowd participates via singing loudly and/or rocking out around them. I learned long ago that I can\u0026rsquo;t worry about what such people think about me, because they don\u0026rsquo;t know what\u0026rsquo;s going on. As a rule of thumb, if you go to a rock show and don\u0026rsquo;t want to be involved in the rocking out, sit at a table somewhere in the back.\nRock shows consist of a number of bands (usually 3), so they tend to last for a few hours. Thus to sing and rock out with total abandon for that time period is a tiring proposition. We can formulate a Law of Rock Fatigue, in fact: F = Rl, where F is physical body fatigue, R is a constant denoting the rockingestness of a given band, and l is the length of time the band plays ( tend - tstart). Things become more complicated when you add multiple bands in a row, and we have to define the temporal fatigue quantifier (Q), which has been experimentally determined to be: Q = ((t1 - t0)/10) + 1. Here, t1 - t0 is the time in hours between the time the given band starts and the time the first band started (meaning, for the first band, Q = 1). Thus for any given show, rock fatigue (in units I will call \u0026ldquo;tireds\u0026rdquo;) is calculated via the formula (where n is the number of bands playing the show):\nF = Q1R1l1 + Q2R2l2 + \u0026hellip; + QnRnln\nAll this is to say that after rocking out, you might expect to have increased in at least a few tireds. That\u0026rsquo;s ok, though, because the number of tireds gained as a result of rocking out is directly proportional to the increase in the quota of rock, which is what this whole entry is about.\nAnyway, over the past year, it has been obvious that my quota of rock has been largely unmet. Thus it was with great relish that I felt the tank of rock being filled up last night at the show. The opening band, Cast of Thousands or something like that, was unimpressive. Their music was good, but their stage presence exuded self-importance, posturing, and over-dramatization. Thankfully Lovedrug was none of the above, and they rocked out like crazy, increasing the heights of rockage to which I myself aspire. There was much Jonathan-esque rocking out, including singing along with the lead singer\u0026rsquo;s odd, high, crooning voice, which melded perfectly into the wall of strident guitar anthems. Lovedrug plays a kind of dark and beautiful rock (at times heavy, at times not) accompanied by brilliant vocal melodies, reminiscent of Muse, but in my opinion better. Importantly, they completely nailed their set, and what\u0026rsquo;s more, I could tell they were playing their hearts out; it is rare and awesome when those two events coincide.\nThe headliner for the evening was Smoking Popes, an old punk-style band from Chicago (I believe it is their reunion tour). I went to the show to hear Lovedrug, but Chuck had given me some Popes stuff beforehand, and I thought it was fair; so I was surprised when their live performance was far better than fair\u0026ndash;it was incredible! An hour went by like a minute amidst a happy crowd bouncing and rocking out to catchy and sincerely-delivered melodic indie punk tunes.\nThe bottom line is that I need such experiences far more often than I remember to go after them. There\u0026rsquo;s something very satisfying and purifying about rocking out, and I feel very much at home in an indie rock crowd, despite all the pretentiousness that could justifiably be attributed to it. Also, going to shows tends to inspire me to write more music and care more about getting my music around. It is a yet-unfulfilled dream that Splendour Hyaline would have the opportunity to tour as a band in our own right, maybe with awesome folks like Lovedrug. Of course, there are many barriers to pursuing such a dream, but it is fun to be reminded of it nonetheless.\nWell, so much for rocking out\u0026ndash;now I\u0026rsquo;m heading out of town for Memorial Day weekend, where I will hopefully be doing another kind of rocking out\u0026ndash;on real rocks. And wearing the awesome Lovedrug zipper hoodie that I bought to support such a great band\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s blue with that sweet Pegasus guy on the front. Cheers.\nPS: Check out this music video for Lovedrug\u0026rsquo;s song Spiders, one of their less-hardcore, more-accessible songs (maybe the single?).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/05/the-quota-of-rock/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast night I went back to the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco for the second time this month, to see the \u003ca href=\"http://www.smokingpopes.net\"\u003eSmoking Popes\u003c/a\u003e / \u003ca href=\"http://lovedrugmusic.com\"\u003eLovedrug\u003c/a\u003e show. It was an incredible experience, and I realized something about myself that is important to share (and might also be an important contribution to Rock Theory in general).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.lovedrugmusic.com/images/themeimg.jpg\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eGratuitous picture to get you to read further: Lovedrug\u0026rsquo;s symbol of the moment\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n","title":"The Quota of Rock"},{"content":"(If you haven\u0026rsquo;t yet, read my long, philosophical review of The Da Vinci Code)\nI saw the movie a few days ago, and so I thought I\u0026rsquo;d make a short list of some important ways that it was different than the book:\nThe movie\u0026rsquo;s plot was less complicated. Langdon was more of a spineless religioid. (In the book, he knew about, and believed, the Priory\u0026rsquo;s story. In the movie, he calls it a \u0026ldquo;myth\u0026rdquo;, tacks \u0026ldquo;according to the Priory myth\u0026rdquo; on the end of all his statements, and argues unconvincingly about it with Teabing\u0026ndash;using much the same arguments as moviegoers would expect frustrated Christians to use). Ultimately he comes across as having gone on a journey of personal discovery, which is not at all the character of the book. Bezu Fache was more of a religious fanatic, and a forensic dupe (as opposed to the brilliant, hard-as-nails police captain from the novel). Teabing was a much more lively character than I would have assumed from the book. The conclusion, especially regarding Sophie\u0026rsquo;s family, was far less satisfying. Apart from the Teabing bit, all of these were disappointments. The one change I really liked about the movie was the part where Robert finds the seal under the sign of the rose in the keystone. It is covered with \u0026ldquo;mysterious writing\u0026rdquo; (in reality, just English written reflectedly). In the book, the characters agonize for a long time over its deciphering. But it is quite clearly (there\u0026rsquo;s a picture in the book) English. In the movie, Robert takes one glance at it and says, \u0026ldquo;We need a mirror,\u0026rdquo; as any non-catatonic English-speaker would. So it cleared up one embarrassment.\nNow, mostly what I want to talk about is two broader-picture statements which occurred in the movie explicitly but not in the book. As we will see, it\u0026rsquo;s to Dan Brown\u0026rsquo;s credit that he didn\u0026rsquo;t write such laughable dialogue into the novel. (Or if he did, it was done in such a way that I missed it).\nFirst, there is a statement Ian McKellen\u0026rsquo;s character (Leigh Teabing) makes after the argument over the truth of the Priory myth. He says:\nAs long as there has been the one true God, there has been killing in his name.\nThe statement, of course, is true. But it\u0026rsquo;s only an interesting statement in light of another proposition, which I take here to be necessary and implicit, namely that (a) if we hadn\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;invented\u0026rdquo; the one true God, there would have been no religious killing. Or, (b) if we \u0026ldquo;de-invent\u0026rdquo; God, there will be substantially less killing. Or, what would be most absurd, (c) if we were polytheists, we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t kill people.\nObviously, none of those statements come anywhere near true. The fact is that, while religion does spawn its fair share of killing, it is only insofar as religion is being used by those with power to kill those they don\u0026rsquo;t like (for, I\u0026rsquo;m certain, fundamentally non-religious reasons). In other words, the base motive for religious killings is the same as the base motive for any other type of killing\u0026ndash;but the word \u0026ldquo;God\u0026rdquo;, like the word \u0026ldquo;patriotism\u0026rdquo; or the words \u0026ldquo;national security\u0026rdquo;, gets mouthed as a way to spin deaths so that they seem less barbaric, less arbitrary, and less for a certain party\u0026rsquo;s benefit.\nPay attention: when the wizard behind the machine of war is finally revealed, we will all stare, not into the face of some lie about God\u0026rsquo;s existence, but into our own hearts, and our own lust for power and control.\nSo it is strange to me how often I run across people who are saying, in one form or another, that many of the world\u0026rsquo;s great ills are somehow caused by God (the idea of God, that is, according to them). I feel it is strange not because the data don\u0026rsquo;t support such a supposition, but because it is so obviously a superficial reading of the data. I can\u0026rsquo;t believe anyone would put it forward who has taken a serious and hard look at human nature, religious or areligious.\nNow to the second quote from the movie. It was a bit longer, so I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;ll get it wrong and this is more of a paraphrase. But it went something like this (when Teabing is trying to convince Sophie to \u0026ldquo;reveal herself\u0026rdquo; as the heir of Christ, in order to bring the secret truth of the Priory to the world\u0026ndash;Teabing is talking):\nSophie, you have the power to take thousands of years of bloodshed, and the oppression of women, and racism\u0026hellip;with this one act you can make it all go away, put everything to rights at last!\nI have a hard time imagining the script writer thinking that such a statement would come across as anything but naive absurdity. Again, the basic fallacy is the same: no doubt Christians have collaborated in all kinds of evil schemes involving bloodshed, the oppression of women, and racism. But that is not to say in the least that ridding the world of Christianity would rid the world of any of those ills. No\u0026ndash;unfortunately, evil can transform any system into a guise, a front for its operations. Women were oppressed because evil men wanted power, not because men where Christians. It just so happened, even if the correllation is true (which it\u0026rsquo;s not, really) that Christian language could be used in the mouths of evil men just as easily as any other kind of talking.\nAgain my worry is that somehow, after seeing the movie, people will think there is some basis to such a lame duck of an analysis of the history of evil over the past 2000 years. I mean, I can certainly see the appeal of a scapegoat. But we need to be aware that the cause of oppression, racism, and war is not some system that has a name and that we can topple\u0026ndash;no, the cause is us. It\u0026rsquo;s the ones perpetrating the injustices, and the ones letting it go on happening. Of course, we will use whatever is at hand to justify evil action and inaction, even if that is Christianity (as it was apparently used to keep slaves in America from trying for freedom). But were Christianity not around, we would just use something else.\n(Side note: maybe that\u0026rsquo;s where a post-modern, deconstructionist methodology could actually aid us\u0026ndash;it is very good at laying bare the hidden motives of people and systems, and the flow of power.)\nAnyway, that\u0026rsquo;s that for my Da Vinci Code kick. I just thought it was a good opportunity to take on some of the more silly things that people think (enough people, apparently, for those philosophical memes to have trickled down into mass media). Also, it was fun to actually write about something besides myself for a while. Hopefully the trend will continue!\nUpdate: found a great review of the movie in the New Yorker\u0026hellip;check it out!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/05/the-da-vinci-code-movie-follow-up/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(If you haven\u0026rsquo;t yet, read my \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/406\"\u003elong, philosophical review\u003c/a\u003e of \u003cem\u003eThe Da Vinci Code\u003c/em\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI saw the movie a few days ago, and so I thought I\u0026rsquo;d make a short list of some important ways that it was different than the book:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe movie\u0026rsquo;s plot was less complicated.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eLangdon was more of a spineless religioid. (In the book, he knew about, and believed, the Priory\u0026rsquo;s story. In the movie, he calls it a \u0026ldquo;myth\u0026rdquo;, tacks \u0026ldquo;according to the Priory myth\u0026rdquo; on the end of all his statements, and argues unconvincingly about it with Teabing\u0026ndash;using much the same arguments as moviegoers would expect frustrated Christians to use). Ultimately he comes across as having gone on a journey of personal discovery, which is not at all the character of the book.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBezu Fache was more of a religious fanatic, and a forensic dupe (as opposed to the brilliant, hard-as-nails police captain from the novel).\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTeabing was a much more lively character than I would have assumed from the book.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe conclusion, especially regarding Sophie\u0026rsquo;s family, was far less satisfying.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApart from the Teabing bit, all of these were disappointments. The one change I really liked about the movie was the part where Robert finds the seal under the sign of the rose in the keystone. It is covered with \u0026ldquo;mysterious writing\u0026rdquo; (in reality, just English written reflectedly). In the book, the characters agonize for a long time over its deciphering. But it is quite clearly (there\u0026rsquo;s a picture in the book) English. In the movie, Robert takes one glance at it and says, \u0026ldquo;We need a mirror,\u0026rdquo; as any non-catatonic English-speaker would. So it cleared up one embarrassment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow, mostly what I want to talk about is two broader-picture statements which occurred in the movie explicitly but not in the book. As we will see, it\u0026rsquo;s to Dan Brown\u0026rsquo;s credit that he didn\u0026rsquo;t write such laughable dialogue into the novel. (Or if he did, it was done in such a way that I missed it).\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"The Da Vinci Code: Movie Follow-up"},{"content":"I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code (hereafter TDVC\u0026ndash;or maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll write it out for SEO purposes). It was more or less, given all the fuss, what I\u0026rsquo;d expected. I thought I\u0026rsquo;d share some thoughts and reflections. Be warned\u0026ndash;I will probably reveal things about the plot that you may not want to know if you are keeping a vow of Da Vinci virginity or something.\nFirst, it\u0026rsquo;s a fun read. The plot is more or less a movie script\u0026ndash;chopped up into small scenes, and everything described seemingly just for the director of photography. In some cases I even had the strange feeling that when I see the movie this weekend (or whenever), I\u0026rsquo;ll have predicted most of the zooms and fades that will be a part of the cinematography. I guess that\u0026rsquo;s supposed to make The Da Vinci Code bad literature. I don\u0026rsquo;t really have any love for the lit snobs, but Shakespeare aside, it was sort of annoying. It felt syncopated, and like I was being coddled or overfed. You just can\u0026rsquo;t have 100 climaxes in one novel; there needs to be more foreplay. But all that is to say, I think it will be a great movie. The plot itself is certainly fast-paced, and the mysteries are for the most part not inane. Some of the clues were easy to figure out beforehand, but others weren\u0026rsquo;t. Anyway\u0026ndash;a fun read. And quick. Moreover it appealed to the cryptologist in me\u0026ndash;I used to study and write ciphers and codes when I was a child, and spend hours reading about their historical uses and such.\nSecond, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to see why Christians would protest the book. After all, one thing we know about Christians is that they will protest anything that looks like it could undermine their already-fast-eroding image in popular culture. The fact that this is the subject of The Da Vinci Code just makes people pay less attention. The book\u0026rsquo;s basically saying, \u0026ldquo;Christianity acts to silence things it doesn\u0026rsquo;t like\u0026rdquo;, so whatever the factual state of the content which drives that polemic vehicle, people will feel it is corroborated by Christians acting to silence it. In \u0026ldquo;responding\u0026rdquo;, Christians will unwittingly substantiate the very claims they want to debunk. This is both unfortunate and unfair. I say it is unfair because the situation is set up in such a way so that any \u0026ldquo;response\u0026rdquo; will seem hollow from the outset. I say it is unfortunate because, again, things are set up to disincline people on either side from looking beyond the red-herringed, surface issues. What matters at this stage is not, as you might think, whether Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and all the rest. What matters is that such a suggestion will rile Christians up so that any interlocutor will sense a great amount of defensiveness, and feel justified in affirming the book\u0026rsquo;s central tenet. What is that central tenet? To illustrate, I\u0026rsquo;ll quote a longish section (from the end of Chapter 82, in a conversation between the main characters):\n\u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s an enormous difference between hypothetically discussing an alternate history of Christ, and\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; He paused.\n\u0026ldquo;And what?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;And presenting to the world thousands of ancient documents as scientific evidence that the New Testament is false testimony.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;But you told me the New Testament is based on fabrications.\u0026rdquo;\nLangdon smiled. \u0026ldquo;Sophie, every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith\u0026ndash;acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;So you are in favor of the Sangreal documents staying buried forever?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m a historian. I\u0026rsquo;m opposed to the destruction of documents, and I would love to see religious scholars have more information to ponder the exceptional life of Jesus Christ.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re arguing both sides of my question.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Am I? The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet, in much the same way the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon offer guidance to people of other religions. If you and I could dig up documentation that contradicted the holy stories of Islamic belief, Judaic belief, Buddhist belief, pagan belief, should we do that? Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;My point exactly,\u0026rdquo; Langdon said. \u0026ldquo;Religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;But it appears their reality is false.\u0026rdquo;\nLangdon chuckled. \u0026ldquo;No more false than that of a mathematical cryptographer who believes in the imaginary number \u0026rsquo; i\u0026rsquo; because it helps her break codes.\u0026rdquo;\nSophie frowned. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s not fair.\u0026rdquo;\nThere are many, many things to unpack in this segment. We might begin by pointing out that Sophie\u0026rsquo;s retort at the end is right on\u0026ndash;it is unfair for Langdon to assume the non-reality of i. The non-reality of mathematical entities is by no means a settled (or majority) philosophical opinion. The larger issue is of course The Da Vinci Code\u0026rsquo;s implicit claim that there are really two \u0026ldquo;realities\u0026rdquo; that we exist in. One is the reality of objective truth, where \u0026ldquo;scientific evidence\u0026rdquo; belongs. The other is the reality of \u0026ldquo;fundamental guideposts\u0026rdquo;, of \u0026ldquo;religious allegory\u0026rdquo; that \u0026ldquo;helps millions of people cope and be better people.\u0026rdquo; Here Brown reduces to a strident echo of the vox populi of our age, and he fails to adequately respond to Sophie\u0026rsquo;s insistence that \u0026ldquo;their reality is false.\u0026rdquo;\nThere really is a deep philosophical tension here. Why is it at all appropriate to sidestep questions of truth in favor of a pseudo-reality that somehow \u0026ldquo;helps people\u0026rdquo;. Why would we think there is any guarantee that pseudo-realities can \u0026ldquo;help\u0026rdquo; people? It seems that in our most primitive of experiences (walking, eating, and so forth), departing from that more \u0026ldquo;objective reality\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;the one where science operates\u0026ndash;comes with deadly consequences. Everyone knows there are a million examples, but I\u0026rsquo;ll give one: it does me no good to declare that, although Drano, scientifically speaking, is not food, in my \u0026ldquo;spiritual reality\u0026rdquo; or whatever, I can partake of it for sustenance. Now, it is one thing to talk about partaking of Drano. If, on the other hand, I really engage in the activity, I will soon learn that my self-constructed \u0026ldquo;spiritual reality\u0026rdquo; is no match for that other reality. It seems that The Da Vinci Code agrees so far (\u0026ldquo;The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.\u0026rdquo;)\nSo let\u0026rsquo;s ask another awkward question: How could it be beneficial to believe in anything that we don\u0026rsquo;t consider to be a part of that \u0026ldquo;objective\u0026rdquo; reality? How could it be beneficial to me to believe that Drano is sustenance if I simultaneously know that Drano is not really sustenance? The imagined response is that the Drano example is nonsensical, whereas if we\u0026rsquo;re talking about Jesus, the answer is obvious: Jesus inspires people. He was the proto-feminist, he was a liberator, etc. But this dodges the issue, for the issue is why it would be beneficial to continue to speak of things like Jesus\u0026rsquo; divinity, his virgin birth, his miracles, and his resurrection, if such things did not happen. The only way out appears to be to say that these things are all symbolic\u0026ndash;they remind us and point out to us the things that actually are real in the non-religious sense of \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo;, e.g., his proto-feminism, his love of outcasts, and so forth. But does this not seem like some sort of Da Vinci Code itself? Some sort of serpentine path of clues that leads right back\u0026ndash;to where we started. My point is this\u0026ndash;if you believe certain things about Jesus and not others, you will ultimately only be inspired by the things you believe about him\u0026ndash;not the ones you don\u0026rsquo;t.\nAnd yet there is a bit of positive insight in the passage we just read as well\u0026ndash;people do try to \u0026ldquo;get at\u0026rdquo; God, or the \u0026ldquo;unprocessible\u0026rdquo; via metaphor. Metaphor is extremely valuable in this sense. And of course, as The Da Vinci Code suggests, to believe literally in these metaphors is to commit a fallacy. But it is not a fallacy to believe literally in the thing the metaphor is attempting to \u0026ldquo;get at\u0026rdquo;. Moreover, it goes without saying that Dan Brown pulls a bit of a fast one in that it is presupposed that language of Jesus\u0026rsquo; miracles and resurrection are metaphorical. While it is inappropriate to take a metaphor literally, it is not inappropriate to take a literal statement literally. \u0026ldquo;Jesus Christ is Lord of the Earth\u0026rdquo; is thus a statement whose metaphoricity, and therefore the appropriateness of its being taken literally, depend on the epistemology of the one uttering the statement. In fact, metaphor always operates this way\u0026ndash;so it is curious to see The Da Vinci Code proposing the metaphor as existing somehow objectively. What should be proposed as existing (or not existing) objectively are facts which substantiate the literal form of the statement. If there are none such, those who believe the proposition can be stated literally will eventually find themselves in the proverbial Drano-drinking situation. So it is at this stage that it begins to matter whether Christ resurrected or not.\nAnyway, all this is supposed to highlight: The Da Vinci Code seems to propose that it is OK to \u0026ldquo;believe\u0026rdquo; things that, strictly speaking, we know to be false (in the \u0026ldquo;real\u0026rdquo; reality), as long as we just talk about believing them, or believe them in some vague non-propositional way, or engage in some other as-yet-undiscovered propositional attitude like \u0026ldquo;believe-as-metaphor\u0026rdquo; towards claims like \u0026ldquo;Jesus is divine\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;the Buddha came from a lotus blossom\u0026rdquo;. The instant we transfer those claims to normal propositional attitudes like \u0026ldquo;believe-to-be-true\u0026rdquo;, however, we have transgressed. Why? Because, according to The Da Vinci Code, they are not really true (in the story, remember, there are \u0026ldquo;thousands of ancient documents\u0026rdquo; which prove such claims to be false). But there is no good reason given for why anyone should think it is OK to believe things we know to be false, other than that it helps us become better people. Why better people, rather than worse people? It\u0026rsquo;s unclear, when it\u0026rsquo;s exactly the thing that needs to be the clearest\u0026ndash;something is practical only insofar as it is seen to be useful for a certain, pre-defined end. In this case The Da Vinci Code is supposing that \u0026ldquo;false religious belief\u0026rdquo; is practical, but the only end in sight is this one of \u0026ldquo;becoming better people\u0026rdquo;. Since such an end requires definition and elucidation, but none is forthcoming in the book, we are left at a dead end.\nIronically (but perhaps sensibly, given what I\u0026rsquo;ve said), the story\u0026rsquo;s main characters do not seem to spend a lot of time pondering whether they should adopt some false religious beliefs to better themselves. No\u0026ndash;they are enlightened because they have the knowledge that these beliefs are actually false, and so feel no pull towards engaging in belief of them, metaphorically or otherwise. Robert and Sophie spend their time deliberating what to do about \u0026ldquo;all those poor people who actually really believe these things\u0026rdquo;, and settle on this strategy of protecting their schizophrenic reality. You definitely get the feeling that they are looking down from the heights of enlightenment and power because they actually know the truth. They\u0026rsquo;ve chosen to keep that truth hidden, for the psychological safety of the world, but the last thing they\u0026rsquo;d do is engage in beliefs that contradict that truth.\nThus the book sends an odd message, which if I were to paraphrase it, would be like this: \u0026ldquo;Seek the truth with all your heart, and when you\u0026rsquo;ve gotten it, congratulate yourself on being more enlightened than the rest. Go to great lengths not to disturb others with your enlightenment, because the brutes aren\u0026rsquo;t ready; they might be destroyed. Now contemplate the sacred feminine.\u0026rdquo; Or something similar. So there is a very devious talking out of both sides of the mouth going on. On one side we have the age-old draw of Gnosticism\u0026ndash;come closer, and I will ravage your soul with secret knowledge that will transform you into something greater! It\u0026rsquo;s no less Gnosticism for the fact that, in The Da Vinci Code, it could be construed as atheistic. And on the other side we have a very un-thought-out religious pluralism, where religious beliefs live in some sort of \u0026ldquo;personal reality\u0026rdquo; that, when all is said and done, don\u0026rsquo;t affect anyone\u0026rsquo;s lives at all. (\u0026ldquo;Jesus is divine\u0026rdquo; just ends up meaning \u0026ldquo;Jesus was a feminist\u0026rdquo; or something). In this story, the Gnostic heroes end up being the guardians of the rest of humanity, and their secrecy is reinforced\nIt seems to me that, once all these issues are on the table, the door is opened to discuss the factual nature of The Da Vinci Code\u0026rsquo;s claims about Christianity, specifically. As it turns out, most of the more juicy ones are quite historically off, or uncorroborated, or pure speculation spun into a good mystery (but taken by many as true). I won\u0026rsquo;t go into any of these specifically here. But I will mention that we at Teleios have recently partnered with Alpha in the UK to deliver a video seminar of theirs on The Da Vinci Code, where they do go into some detail. I\u0026rsquo;d recommend taking a look at it\u0026ndash;but only after having read all the foregoing. As I said before, jumping right into defensive debates about the facts can only reinforce that message of the book which says that Christians do have something to fear. To get to the course, just go to http://alpha.org/davinci/. Incidentally, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a Reddit going trying to promote it\u0026ndash;if you find the framework/video valuable, please go to this page and vote for it!\nThe second part of what I want to say has to do with what I would call The Da Vinci Code\u0026rsquo;s misconstruing, not now the facts of Christianity, but rather the meaning, or message, or point of it. Here are some key implications from the book:\nThe nature of Christianity is such that it is constantly engaged in covering things up, hiding them Christianity opposes free thinking Christianity subjugates women Christianity glorifies masculinity and silences femininity The Church, not Jesus, is the source of our understandings of him The Church opposed paganism, not because she (curiously, the Church is often thought of as female, something which doesn\u0026rsquo;t make sense on The Da Vinci Code\u0026rsquo;s reading of it) thought it was false, but because it was afraid paganism would reveal the Church\u0026rsquo;s true roots Christianity is anti-sexual, and tries to suppress our natural and good longings for sex \u0026hellip;and so on. These are the things that really frustrated me, because it showed a very deep and personal (on the part of Dan Brown) misunderstanding of Christianity and the Church. Let me put it very bluntly: to the extent that those statements describe an actual religion or an actual group of people, that religion and/or that group of people are not Christianity or the Church!. The fact that so many people obviously resonate with The Da Vinci Code\u0026rsquo;s vision of Christianity shows that these claims have been too often corroborated in people\u0026rsquo;s experience. That is where our shame (as Christians) should be\u0026ndash;not that we have hidden or covered up anything (because we haven\u0026rsquo;t\u0026ndash;not like the The Da Vinci Code says, anyway), but rather that actions or words of ours have been interpreted as substantiating (or, worse, really did substantiate) those claims.\nWhat I want to do is uphold both Christ\u0026rsquo;s resurrection and Christianity\u0026rsquo;s reverence for both the male and female roles and purposes and all the rest. There is no need to invent a Christ who married Mary Magdalene to convince me that Christianity promotes equality for women. But the tone of the book is that such is indeed the way of things. Another example: there is a sharp line drawn, in The Da Vinci Code, between a \u0026ldquo;healthy\u0026rdquo; sexuality, and Christian practice. While of course I would disagree with many people\u0026rsquo;s views on what is a \u0026ldquo;healthy\u0026rdquo; sexuality, I want to deny that Christianity has anything to do with repressing sexual desire in general, or treating it as unholy, or punishing people for certain thoughts, and so on.\nI guess in sum it is just sad that The Da Vinci Code\u0026rsquo;s accusations have found such a ready reception. It means that they are obviously not baseless, in terms of how Christianity is seen and what some Christians have done in the world. But they are baseless in terms of who Jesus Christ was, and how it was intended that Christians live their lives, even and especially on an orthodox view of Christ, including his divinity and resurrection and all that. It is the pages of the Christian scriptures, not the Gnostic ones, that hold the keys to true freedom, liberation, and happiness\u0026ndash;indeed the very kind of freedom, liberation, and happiness that people want! (Not some made-up \u0026ldquo;church\u0026rdquo; kind. Actual, real happiness).\nNow, let me bring things to a close and restate my thoughts more succinctly: First, the way The Da Vinci Code phrases its claims is somewhat sneaky, in that some ways of responding to it could actually inadvertently substantiate those claims. So in talking about it, some groundwork must be laid. Second, whether or not it is OK to be a Christian actually depends on some facts about the world (like whether or not Christ rose from the dead)\u0026ndash;not just on whether I can, in some reality distortion field, make metaphorical claims that sound like Christian tenets. Luckily, The Da Vinci Code doesn\u0026rsquo;t dig up anything that need cause those central issues to be doubted (though it should be said, of course, that if one held certain non-central issues as central, one might find them eroding). Third, we (Christians) need to do something to re-educate the world about our views on the list above, to show that, really, they have no basis in the life or teachings of the one we supposedly follow.\nWell, I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to seeing the movie this weekend or soon, and watching the reactions. As always, I will hold my breath more out of fear that the \u0026ldquo;Christian\u0026rdquo; response will be inappropriate or stupid, or not nuanced enough to see the questions that are really beneath the surface, and not the ones on top. But that\u0026rsquo;s just the way it is! Meanwhile, the general spiritual backdrop of our time continues to shift further away from the Christianity of modernism. While that shift will continue to be attended by pockets of popular (but unsubstantiated) speculation, like The Da Vinci Code, it is in my mind a good thing, overall. One has only to visit certain churches in the US to know that, even if there was no cover-up, something, somewhere down the line from Christ, has been lost. Maybe it would be better for us to engage in the search for that Holy Grail than to worry about how Dan Brown is defining his.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/05/the-da-vinci-code/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI just finished reading \u003cem\u003eThe Da Vinci Code\u003c/em\u003e (hereafter TDVC\u0026ndash;or maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll write it out for SEO purposes). It was more or less, given all the fuss, what I\u0026rsquo;d expected. I thought I\u0026rsquo;d share some thoughts and reflections. Be warned\u0026ndash;I will probably reveal things about the plot that you may not want to know if you are keeping a vow of Da Vinci virginity or something.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://movies.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/da_vinci_code/images3/title_main.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n","title":"The Da Vinci Code"},{"content":"While I have for a while been promising certain academic ponderings and/or Whitney summaries, these are not immediately forthcoming. Meanwhile, I thought I\u0026rsquo;d share (in a mood particularly inspired by the new caramel Bailey\u0026rsquo;s and friends) my satisfaction with certain recent Events. Said Events are three. (Actually, there are more, but there has to be some kind of limit)\nEvent 1: On Thursday, I went to an Over the Rhine and Hem show in San Francisco. I have loved and followed Over the Rhine for years. Karin\u0026rsquo;s (the singer\u0026rsquo;s) voice is like magical, sensual, chocolate and wine-filled lovemaking. I think. I have never had magical, sensual, chocolate and wine-filled lovemaking, but it is at least how I would imagine it going. The show was at the Great American Music Hall\u0026ndash;my favorite SF venue, where I have seen most if not all of my favorite artists over the past 6-7 years. After Hem\u0026rsquo;s flawless opening set, Over the Rhine kicked things off with \u0026ldquo;Latter Days\u0026rdquo;, possibly my favorite song of theirs. From then until the end of their hour-plus set, I was in a world of enchantment which I can\u0026rsquo;t coherently relate. Many things rose up in me and got stuck in my throat that I wish I knew how to remember. Times of such beauty are rare.\nEvent 2: Last night (Saturday), my housemate Trent\u0026rsquo;s fiancee and friends were all out for some \u0026ldquo;bachelorette party\u0026rdquo; or something. Not to be outdone, many of us non-women had an \u0026ldquo;anti-bachelorette fiesta\u0026rdquo; of sorts. While the real anti-bachelorette celebration will take place in Mexico in a little while, we settled for much pizza, beer, the viewing of a movie, and some \u0026ldquo;drunken frisbee golf\u0026rdquo;, as we like to call it, on Stanford\u0026rsquo;s campus. This is one of my favorite events. Indeed, it does consist of a certain amount of frisbee golf, but the \u0026ldquo;drunken\u0026rdquo; adjective is not as accurate as might be feared. There is, it is not to be doubted, a good amount of alcohol which is consumed beerly. However, the primary attraction to \u0026ldquo;DFG\u0026rdquo; is not any actual state of drunkenness (which, as good Christians, we studiously avoided), but rather a state I like to call \u0026ldquo;playing frisbee golf with a cigarette and pulling a cooler of cheap beer behind us every once in a while drinking some\u0026rdquo;. For some reason the image is just plain titillating. Beer or no, I had one of my better rounds on the Stanford course, finishing like 10 over par or something.\nEvent 3: Tonight (Sunday), I went to church. Gasp! It has been a while. But I had ulterior motives. Not, surprisingly, to ogle at hot church-going women (though that may or may not have been a previous ulterior motive). In fact, his greatness himself, the fabulous NT Wright, deigned to speak at MPPC\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Postmodern\u0026rdquo; evening service. Candles and big TV screens in full effect, NT gave one of the better talks I\u0026rsquo;ve heard inside the walls of a church in a long time. I\u0026rsquo;m not at the moment in a position to sum up the talk, but suffice it to say it scratched my itchings. I haven\u0026rsquo;t read much of Wright\u0026rsquo;s considerable bibliography, but am now planning on it. I also find myself wishing the man hadn\u0026rsquo;t decided to get involved in the church. If he had opted to stay in academics, for instance, I would have been easily persuaded to travel to Oxford and study under him (such was his facility with history, philosophy, and theology).\nApart from these events, there were also two amazing birthday parties (at Tiburon and Half Moon Bay, respectively), and three amazing games of Ultimate Frisbee. Today at our third game session, I felt a magically-increased ability to read the disc, to run to wherever it was, and to just generally be happy with my performance (a relative first for me in the realm of sports). I suppose I have always underestimated the power of practice to actually make better the thing practiced. Maybe it is because I\u0026rsquo;ve always quit things when the practicing got slightly difficult\u0026ndash;but Ultimate has kept my attention quite well, and I am happy to call it my favorite team sport. (And no I am not a hippie). Also, not to be forgotten, I held a CD release party for Splendour Hyaline\u0026rsquo;s latest offering. A good number of my friends showed up and we rocked out to my music. Apart from the ego-stroking, it was a very meaningful time and I was glad to celebrate the completion of a new art project with many of those I love.\nIn other news\u0026hellip;I am planning on reading The Da Vinci Code. God help me and my literary (in)sensibilities.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/05/random-event-update-mid-may-2006/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWhile I have for a while been promising certain academic ponderings and/or Whitney summaries, these are not immediately forthcoming. Meanwhile, I thought I\u0026rsquo;d share (in a mood particularly inspired by the new \u003ca href=\"http://www.bevmo.com/productinfo.asp?area=home\u0026amp;seref=froogle\u0026amp;pf_id=00000077068\"\u003ecaramel Bailey\u0026rsquo;s\u003c/a\u003e and friends) my satisfaction with certain recent Events. Said Events are three. (Actually, there are more, but there has to be some kind of limit)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvent 1: On Thursday, I went to an \u003ca href=\"http://www.overtherhine.com/\"\u003eOver the Rhine\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.hemmusic.com/home.jsp\"\u003eHem\u003c/a\u003e show in San Francisco. I have loved and followed Over the Rhine for years. Karin\u0026rsquo;s (the singer\u0026rsquo;s) voice is like magical, sensual, chocolate and wine-filled lovemaking. I think. I have never had magical, sensual, chocolate and wine-filled lovemaking, but it is at least how I would imagine it going. The show was at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.gamh.com\"\u003eGreat American Music Hall\u003c/a\u003e\u0026ndash;my favorite SF venue, where I have seen most if not all of my favorite artists over the past 6-7 years. After Hem\u0026rsquo;s flawless opening set, Over the Rhine kicked things off with \u0026ldquo;Latter Days\u0026rdquo;, possibly my favorite song of theirs. From then until the end of their hour-plus set, I was in a world of enchantment which I can\u0026rsquo;t coherently relate. Many things rose up in me and got stuck in my throat that I wish I knew how to remember. Times of such beauty are rare.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Random Event Update, Mid-May 2006"},{"content":"My recent weeks in Orlando were excellent, though not very relaxing. Between intense meetings at Teleios World Domination HQ (we\u0026rsquo;re meeting resistance in certain parts of eastern Europe), and non-stop work on the new album, I got 2-3 hours less sleep per night than my normal. (There was also the fantastic celebration of my dad\u0026rsquo;s 50th birthday party, attended by close family and the uncorking of a very expensive bottle of wine which was a good bit older than I was. Not to mention the less-meaningful but more-rowdy celebration of Cinco de Mayo). The result, at least on the music side, was a brand new 6-song EP that sounds incredible. The performance, production, everything is stellar. My brother David was in charge of the engineering, mixing, production, and mastering, and he is becoming very talented at all of the above.\nWorking on an improv synth solo for So Talk About It at 3am\nI have a strong desire to share all our new songs with everyone here, but a few things remain to be worked out. First, I don\u0026rsquo;t have an \u0026ldquo;official\u0026rdquo; CD\u0026ndash;David does, and he\u0026rsquo;s in Africa for a month. Second, I\u0026rsquo;m not naive enough to think that the mix I have will be final. We usually go through rounds of tweaking, and, while things sound excellent, there\u0026rsquo;re always one or two minor changes to make. Third, the album has no title. Fourth, the album has no artwork. I\u0026rsquo;d like all of these things to be present before I unveil everything officially. So just hold tight for now! I\u0026rsquo;ll probably break down and put one or two up here anyway, since the only reason I feel secure is that I am validated by my peers.\nSpeaking of being validated by my peers, let\u0026rsquo;s go on a tangent: those of you who are e4 weblog owners or frequenters might have noticed that I have added trackback capability to the e4 weblogs. Trackbacks are a cool example of the way the web is supposed to work\u0026ndash;now, when you write entries, e4 will check out any links you make, and attempt to send a trackback ping to that site. If the site is trackback-enabled, it\u0026rsquo;ll accept the ping, and people who visit it will see that your entry references the page! Likewise all the weblogs here are now trackback-enabled, so anyone can send pings from Movable Type, WordPress, or wherever. Let\u0026rsquo;s just hope for no horrible spam!\n(For you e4 bloggers, you can play with the trackback preferences at your weblog config page)\nWell, I am now officially back in California for a while, so hopefully I\u0026rsquo;ll have time to write some more reflective posts soon. Ciao!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/05/recording-spree-over-new-album-complete/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMy recent weeks in Orlando were excellent, though not very relaxing. Between intense meetings at Teleios World Domination HQ (we\u0026rsquo;re meeting resistance in certain parts of eastern Europe), and non-stop work on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/385\"\u003enew album\u003c/a\u003e, I got 2-3 hours less sleep per night than my normal. (There was also the fantastic celebration of my dad\u0026rsquo;s 50th birthday party, attended by close family and the uncorking of a very expensive bottle of wine which was a good bit older than I was. Not to mention the less-meaningful but more-rowdy celebration of Cinco de Mayo). The result, at least on the music side, was a brand new 6-song EP that sounds incredible. The performance, production, everything is stellar. My brother David was in charge of the engineering, mixing, production, and mastering, and he is becoming very talented at all of the above.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Recording Spree Over: New Album Complete!"},{"content":"It used to be the case that it didn\u0026rsquo;t take me long to write songs. I\u0026rsquo;d sit down with the guitar, fiddle around until I came across some chords that seemed good, make up a passable melody, and then move over to the computer and type some lyrics. Usually the process would take at most a couple hours. Then, I\u0026rsquo;d move straight into recording, bypassing the \u0026ldquo;practice\u0026rdquo; stage\u0026ndash;the multiple takes were the practice. So I\u0026rsquo;d go from idea to mp3 in under a day.\nSomewhere in college that changed\u0026hellip;probably after I realized that the quality of both the idea and the mp3 were less than excellent. One of the effects of this realization was a drastically lower songwriting rate\u0026ndash;from something like 12 a year at the end of high school to just a couple a year at the end of college. I\u0026rsquo;d like to think there was a proportional increase in song quality, but still, it was kind of sad to look back on a year and not have a lot to show for it, musically speaking. Although in truth, the songwriting hesitance had less to do with music theory and more to do with lyrics\u0026ndash;I was just dissatisfied with everything I came up with; I was no longer writing \u0026ldquo;worship\u0026rdquo; lyrics, and I was no longer writing \u0026ldquo;how I\u0026rsquo;m feeling\u0026rdquo; lyrics, which meant that coming up with ideas was much, much harder.\nAll of the above is just meant to elucidate my surprise when, on Friday night, I sat down with the guitar, came up with a part I liked and a vocal melody to accompany it, and then in about an hour also had a complete set of lyrics for the song! I played it for Dav when he got back from hanging out with friends, and we decided to put it in the queue for the album we\u0026rsquo;re recording now. Hopefully that means you\u0026rsquo;ll get to hear it soon. It\u0026rsquo;s fairly original (I think) and is in 5/4, so I get props for that anyway. I called it \u0026ldquo;The Restless Slumber of Dry Kindling\u0026rdquo;, and I\u0026rsquo;ll reproduce the lyrics here:\nRising, a sliver, like the moon Take me right away to doom Hope shouldn\u0026#39;t be the end of me Yet whispers say I\u0026#39;m 23 Rugged, the way to sanity A lonely, sad old colony Overlooked by all who\u0026#39;ve gone before, Easier to sail to other shores More to the point is I don\u0026#39;t know Which way it is that I should go Newness, a sharp-lit symmetry Attractive; does reality Speak up, gently colorize Halting the heart\u0026#39;s unconscious rise Freezing the blood that wants to stir? Hibernation is a lonely word So wake me up, wake me up Can\u0026#39;t stop the fires that are running Through trenches towards me Oh no Ooooooooo If flame is the order of the day Responsibility for fuel is laid With you so don\u0026#39;t waste our time I can only sing so many rhymes Love\u0026#39;s only if I close my eyes Still I can\u0026#39;t help but look to the prize Watchman\u0026#39;s vigil in a tower room Spiteful of the brazen rising moon So how long, how long Can\u0026#39;t stop the fires that are running Through trenches towards me Oh no Ooooooooo Well, off to do more recording\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/the-restless-slumber-of-dry-kindling/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt used to be the case that it didn\u0026rsquo;t take me long to write songs. I\u0026rsquo;d sit down with the guitar, fiddle around until I came across some chords that seemed good, make up a passable melody, and then move over to the computer and type some lyrics. Usually the process would take at most a couple hours. Then, I\u0026rsquo;d move straight into recording, bypassing the \u0026ldquo;practice\u0026rdquo; stage\u0026ndash;the multiple takes \u003cem\u003ewere\u003c/em\u003e the practice. So I\u0026rsquo;d go from idea to mp3 in under a day.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Restless Slumber of Dry Kindling"},{"content":"You should all be relieved to hear that Dan and I did not die on Mt Whitney. Though the summit attempt was a good deal more difficult than it was supposed to be, due to weather. In fact, on our way up the last 1,000 ft or so, our group kicked off a couple small avalanches, causing the team leader to declare emphatically that conditions were very unsafe. Things were so bad, we descended immediately, packed up camp (at 12,000 ft) as quickly as possible, and rushed all the way down the mountain. So unfortunately, we did not summit Mt Whitney. I did get this great picture of it during a short lull in the rogue winter storm that hit us:\nIt should be said also that we did have an excellent time, were in great physical condition (we rocked the climb and the altitude) and health for the duration, and got back a day early, safe and sound. These are all good things, and the whole experience was overwhelmingly positive. I\u0026rsquo;m sure Dan and I will be writing a full trip report to post at Summit Whitney, so I\u0026rsquo;ll post here when that happens. At that time we should have a number of awesome pictures, too.\nAbout a day after I got back from Whitney, I left for Florida to be at work and with family for a week and a half or so. Since my brother David has gotten in to Duke law school and will be moving to Durham pretty shortly, we decided that Splendour Hyaline (which consists of the two of us) needed to make a new record, and fast. So apart from work, we\u0026rsquo;re pretty much in the studio (Spareroom Studios, that is). So far things are going great\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;re planning on releasing a 5 or 6 song EP. The recording quality we\u0026rsquo;re getting, both mechanically and in terms of performance, is light years beyond our previous attempts, so definitely stay tuned; we might post some unofficial mixes here or at our myspace page.\nOn another music-related note, you\u0026rsquo;ll notice a new sidebar on my blog, which consists of recently-played tracks from iTunes. All e4 blogs now have the ability to get data from last.fm if you have a last.fm username and some implementation of AudioScrobbler (downloads here for all platforms). If you\u0026rsquo;ve never heard of last.fm, you should check it out\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s a cool web application that tracks your music listening and gives you cool statistics about it, suggests new artists, and connects you with people with similar taste. All that is to say, if I\u0026rsquo;ve been listening to iTunes recently (and had an internet connection), you should now be able to see that info on my blog! (If you also have an e4 blog, just go to the weblog config page and put in your last.fm username to take advantage of this feature too).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/back-from-whitney-into-spareroom-studios/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eYou should all be relieved to hear that Dan and I did not die on Mt Whitney. Though the summit attempt was a good deal more difficult than it was supposed to be, due to weather. In fact, on our way up the last 1,000 ft or so, our group kicked off a couple small avalanches, causing the team leader to declare emphatically that conditions were very unsafe. Things were so bad, we descended immediately, packed up camp (at 12,000 ft) as quickly as possible, and rushed all the way down the mountain. So unfortunately, we did not summit Mt Whitney. I did get this great picture of it during a short lull in the rogue winter storm that hit us:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Back from Whitney / Into Spareroom Studios"},{"content":"(taken from summitwhitney.com):\nWell, the days have gone by, and we\u0026rsquo;ve been training to the best of our ability; now we are on the eve of the climb. Right now Dan and I are having a gear check, then we\u0026rsquo;re going to start the drive to Lone Pine, CA, at the foot of Whitney. The drive is made longer since we can\u0026rsquo;t go through Yosemite at this time of year\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;ll have to go all the way up to Tahoe, then catch the 395 down. We hope to get in a bit of bouldering at Bishop if we have time.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not exactly sure how the trip will go, but any worries will have to be put aside, since now is the time for action. It\u0026rsquo;s time to trust in our guides, our gear, our training, and our resolve to get us safely to the summit. The Summit for Someone website recommended that we \u0026lsquo;be in the best shape of [our] lives\u0026rsquo; for the climb. It\u0026rsquo;s probably safe to say that we are!\nWe\u0026rsquo;ll do a full write-up and post pictures whenever we get back, after a hopefully successful summit. For now, your prayers for safety are appreciated! And of course, you have our thanks for following our progress and for donating to support our climb. We\u0026rsquo;re confident that your contribution will have a great impact on kids\u0026rsquo; lives this summer.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/on-the-way-to-whitney/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(taken from \u003ca href=\"http://summitwhitney.com/?p=9\"\u003esummitwhitney.com\u003c/a\u003e):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell, the days have gone by, and we\u0026rsquo;ve been training to the best of our ability; now we are on the eve of the climb. Right now Dan and I are having a gear check, then we\u0026rsquo;re going to start the drive to Lone Pine, CA, at the foot of Whitney. The drive is made longer since we can\u0026rsquo;t go through Yosemite at this time of year\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;ll have to go all the way up to Tahoe, then catch the 395 down. We hope to get in a bit of bouldering at Bishop if we have time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m not exactly sure how the trip will go, but any worries will have to be put aside, since now is the time for action. It\u0026rsquo;s time to trust in our guides, our gear, our training, and our resolve to get us safely to the summit. The Summit for Someone website recommended that we \u0026lsquo;be in the best shape of [our] lives\u0026rsquo; for the climb. It\u0026rsquo;s probably safe to say that we are!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe\u0026rsquo;ll do a full write-up and post pictures whenever we get back, after a hopefully successful summit. For now, your prayers for safety are appreciated! And of course, you have our thanks for following our progress and for donating to support our climb. We\u0026rsquo;re confident that your contribution will have a great impact on kids\u0026rsquo; lives this summer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"On the Way to Whitney"},{"content":"As I noted in my Greece / Prague travelogue, I kept a list on my recent trip to Europe, which I named \u0026ldquo;Things That Are True\u0026rdquo;. Disappointingly, the content of the list had little to do with philosophical truths or anything which would be of interest to your average human; instead, this was a list of things that were true mostly concerning myself (with the occasional random observation). It was a special list more because of the concise nature of the statements, the self-perception achieved, and the relatively high degree of honesty. So what follows is a very incomplete but nonetheless good summary of, actually, my identity as it currently stands, phrased in terms of struggles, loves, hopes, observations, and more.\nHere it is, exactly as I wrote it out over the 10-day adventure (any editorial additions or comments will be italicized and in brackets):\nThings that are true\nThings that are true, honest, bare, stripped down, inspired. The result of travel, solitude, conversation, thought, pain.\n1. I love languages. I love being in places where there are many spoken. I love learning them. I love reading them. I love thinking about words, their histories, their variants.\n2. I love being overseas. I love being in a place where I know so little that my goal is to understand. In the States, I criticize. In Greece, I try to understand. This is better. I don\u0026rsquo;t know the rules of the game, so I can\u0026rsquo;t judge people or systems. [For example,] I don\u0026rsquo;t know what faith means here, so I can\u0026rsquo;t judge. It is a relief.\n3. I love foreign women. I love it when we catch eyes. We can\u0026rsquo;t understand each other, but there is a connection. I want to understand\u0026hellip;I want to progress in knowing. Maybe a foreign woman is not necessary for this, but there is some real, obvious symbolism in the juxtaposition of languages and cultures that makes me think: here, there is something in which I can progress in understanding.\n4. I really want someone to love. I long and yearn for the possibility of a caress or kiss\u0026ndash;these physical realities are central and important to me, and I feel deprived of them. I know they must correspond to emotional and spiritual realities, but I am blessed with friends and companions so much that I do not feel deprived in those areas. Thus right now the daydreams focus on the physical\u0026ndash;not meaning sexual\u0026ndash;since it is what I lack.\n5. I love solitude. I am beginning to realize this again after years of growing in social skill. I love community, but at the root I am an individual, and I need time alone. To think, to play music [without wondering if I am annoying roommates or neighbors, without being afraid to sing loud], to wonder, to be sad, to pray\u0026hellip; I think I have been deprived of this lately. What I need is radical, intense community, and radical, intense solitude. Recently, I have had neither. Even when I am married, solitude will be important to me. Separation and union, separation and union\u0026ndash;Riddle-maker of Hed style [which won\u0026rsquo;t make sense to any of you unless you read this book]. Is this healthy? In any case it is new\u0026ndash;in relationships I am usually clingy\u0026ndash;tending toward perpetual union. But now I taste the desire for solitude and space even in that [most intimate] relationship.\n6. I am ashamed of Christian symbols. The Bible on the table, the \u0026ldquo;I went to Bible school,\u0026rdquo; the cross necklace, the mentioning of Christian band names, etc\u0026hellip; I am afraid when a stranger sees or hears these things on/about me or someone I am with, they will assume I am a certain way\u0026ndash;corresponding to an image of a Christian they have in their head. But I am almost certainly nothing like that at all! [Maybe the more general observation is that] I want no one to be able to stereotype me in ways I don\u0026rsquo;t encourage. Is this possible? Should I care? Is this feeling tantamount to being ashamed of Christ?\n7. In social situations, I am a paradox. I have two contradictory drives. One is to avoid notice and attention\u0026ndash;to be like everyone else\u0026ndash;to fit in. Another is to insist that I am different\u0026ndash;to stand out. Maybe the rule of thumb is this: in situations where people would think I am the same as those around me (church, for example), I insist on my difference. And in situations where people would think that I am different (Greece, for example), I do all I can to avoid this attention\u0026ndash;to blend in.\n8. In general, I am very wary of people making assumptions about me. In fact, I hate it. For example, I am easily annoyed on this trip with my sister partly because I see people assuming that we are dating/engaged/married (she has a promise ring on her wedding ring finger which could be mistaken for something else). It really rubs me raw\u0026ndash;not sure if it has anything to do with Rachel or if it would be the same with anyone. [After reflection, I\u0026rsquo;m thinking the latter\u0026hellip;it is just hard to flirt with girls if they think I am with the person who is actually my sister] 9. I love exploring. I love going places other people aren\u0026rsquo;t, especially if it involves difficulty. I love doing it alone, and finding secret hidden treasures! (Or places, views, moments\u0026hellip;)\n10. I love moving. I love motion. Whether running, biking, driving, mopedding, sailing, ferrying, flying, swimming\u0026hellip;. I love the feel of wind or water against me. I especially love it when I am controlling the motion\u0026ndash;I have a natural affinity for driving, flying, boating, piloting anything [and by affinity I don\u0026rsquo;t mean skill, but rather something more like \u0026ldquo;joy\u0026rdquo;]. And, I always want to do these things as fast as possible. It seems beautiful to combine speed and controlled motion. I will always choose such activities over standing still.\n11. When I am learning languages, random words that I recently learned tend to pop into my head, and I roll them over and over\u0026ndash;I don\u0026rsquo;t forget these words, but I do forget others.\n12. I need someone who is skilled at drawing me gently out of the depths of myself at the right times. Those depths are beautiful, but can be suffocating. In return I will draw her in to that world where there is much wonder to be experienced.\n13. I am deeply and irrevocably romantic (though it may only last until I find a girl, or she finds me). Every time I go outside, or ride a bus, or fly on an airplane, or whatever, I believe with a real hope that girl X who sits next to me has been divinely put there so that we can start a beautiful story. Just like how all romantic movies begin.\n14. I do not know if my desire to be in love is selfish. [By which I mean, I do not know if it is purely selfish] 15. I am not accurate at guessing girls\u0026rsquo; ages. Or guys\u0026rsquo;, for that matter\u0026hellip;.\n16. Some people inspire me to think great thoughts\u0026ndash;they don\u0026rsquo;t think the thoughts themselves, necessarily, but rather spur me towards an exciting personal intellectual discovery. Some people inspire me to dream great things in areas other than intellectual (say spiritual, social). Some people, on the other hand, frustrate me, and leave me feeling like I\u0026rsquo;ve gone nowhere, or backwards. Others don\u0026rsquo;t have either of these effects. Two observations: (1) After being around the inspiring kind of person, it is such an incredible experience that I unavoidably want that in a girlfriend/wife. (2) I can understand the need to be around the frustrating and ambivalent types, but right now I feel that those are the strong majority of people who surround me. This causes unhappiness.\n17. I really want a dog.\n18. I have an inflated view of my appearance. On the inside I feel dramatic, dark, mysterious, and enticing. I walk around feeling/imagining myself this way. When I see pictures of myself, I am always surprised at how disappointingly not like this image I am. It does not lower my self-esteem, however, because as soon as my eyes leave the photo, I believe I am the image again. Thus my self-esteem is very good, but based on a lie. That\u0026rsquo;s referring to my facial appearance, hair, mannerisms, etc\u0026hellip; i.e., things I can\u0026rsquo;t easily change. Things I can change via exercise, like being ripped/fast/strong/sexy, I \u0026ldquo;fix\u0026rdquo;. But that\u0026rsquo;s not what I mean when I talk about \u0026ldquo;image\u0026rdquo;.\n19. When I hear stories of great and heroic deeds or discoveries, or about great leaders or thinkers of the past, there is a deep resonance in my heart and soul. Maybe I have just read too much fantasy, but I believe I have a high and important destiny. Thus when I look around and see that this is in all likelihood an illusion (there are no more real adventures to be had), I am deeply saddened. The progress of humanity has destroyed the possibility for true individual greatness, and so I feel that I was born for another time and place; here and now, greatness is dead.\n20. I identify with archetypes and archaic or mythical roles and persons\u0026ndash;not real people living here and now.\n21. It is much easier for me to flirt with girls in other cultures than in the States.\n22. I have a high opinion of how responsible I would be with a lot of power, and the revolutionarily Christian way I would use it for good.\n23. I can do everything, but the world is set up for people to do just one thing.\n24. Going out for the sake of going out is expensive and often a disappointing waste of time. But it is all some people do.\n25. Music is my great companion and comfort, the way that I believe God loves me. I believe another such doorway will open when I fall in love with a girl. For now, it is music.\n26. I love logic, symbols, and mathematics.\n27. It never occurred to me until recently that I might not become an academic.\n28. Of all the cultures I have traveled to, I find that Americans have the worst attitudes and are the least helpful in service roles.\n29. I form habits extremely quickly, but discard them much less quickly. (The first part relative to others). Hence I often force myself to switch things up, arbitrarily, in minor issues.\nThere ended the list from the trip. But in the last few days, I would have added one more (if only to round it out to 30):\n30. For me, joy is inextricably linked to hope. If am hopeful, I have joy. If I am hopeless, I do not. For any number of reasons, I have not been hopeful for over 4 months, and that explains why joy has also been absent. This is kind of a problem\u0026ndash;hope has to do with the future, but joy is supposed to be concerned with the present. But it explains why I always like to have some trip or something fun on the horizon to look forward to\u0026ndash;it ensures that there will always be a minimum of joy in my life.\nI was hoping that maybe the process of creating this admittedly random list might help me with my current life dilemma, which is that, given that there are no practical limitations on where I might live and what I might do next year, where should I go, and what should I do? We could make it a binary dilemma: should I stay here and do what I\u0026rsquo;m doing now, or not? As should now be apparent if you read the list, there does seem to be something in me that wants to live in another country, for example, or devote myself to learning a new language. The problem is that such a choice would come with all kinds of sacrifices\u0026hellip;and I don\u0026rsquo;t know how to navigate them.\nIn the end I don\u0026rsquo;t know if the list helped. As I should have expected would be the case, I just feel more confused. Any ideas? Well, I hope the foregoing has been illuminating as regards my personality; I am certainly happy with it as the fruit of my solitude during the trip.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/things-that-are-true/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs I noted in my \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/343\"\u003eGreece / Prague travelogue\u003c/a\u003e, I kept a list on my recent trip to Europe, which I named \u0026ldquo;Things That Are True\u0026rdquo;. Disappointingly, the content of the list had little to do with philosophical truths or anything which would be of interest to your average human; instead, this was a list of things that were true mostly concerning myself (with the occasional random observation). It was a special list more because of the concise nature of the statements, the self-perception achieved, and the relatively high degree of honesty. So what follows is a very incomplete but nonetheless good summary of, actually, my identity as it currently stands, phrased in terms of struggles, loves, hopes, observations, and more.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere it is, exactly as I wrote it out over the 10-day adventure (any editorial additions or comments will be italicized and in brackets):\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Things That Are True"},{"content":"Here are some photos from my recent trip with my sister to Athens, Santorini, and Prague. They haven\u0026rsquo;t been modified/photoshopped in any way! Enjoy. (You can click here to get to the photos)\nColumns from the temple of Olympus Zeus\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-photos/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHere are some photos from my recent trip with my sister to Athens, Santorini, and Prague. They haven\u0026rsquo;t been modified/photoshopped in any way! Enjoy. (You can \u003ca href=\"http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/25882\"\u003eclick here\u003c/a\u003e to get to the photos)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/25882\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/greece.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\nColumns from the temple of Olympus Zeus\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Photos"},{"content":"(this is part VI of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read part I, part II, part III, part IV, and part V)\n4-9, 11:30 AM, Somewhere over the Atlantic\nWow, has it really been 5 days [since I last wrote]? Shamefully, I did not write at all during the visit to Prague. Now, I\u0026rsquo;m sitting on the plane from LHR to JFK, so I have time to wrap up this trip journal. (That is, if the worst flight attendant in the world will stop being a jerk about my bags on the floor). [She had given me this really pathetic, patronizing lecture about exit row protocol, using a voice that I would only use with a 2-year-old, wearing a smile that was oozing smug sarcasm. Ugh.]\nWell, the morning after I last wrote, my sister and I had some amazing breakfast crepes in Fira\u0026ndash;the best I\u0026rsquo;ve ever had. After that, I did end up finding a greek Orthodox bookstore, where the proprietors did not speak very much English, but I hung out with them for a while, and eventually picked up a wonderful New Testament, with one page of each pair being the ancient Greek, and the other being modern (though I learned they still use the polytonic accents in the modern translation, out of reverence for the text). With that, our time in Santorini was more or less over, and we dutifully endured the long ferry ride back to Peiraias. It was quite a bit more crowded than before, and of course the one screaming child in our cabin was seated right next to me. I don\u0026rsquo;t understand obnoxious screaming kids. Don\u0026rsquo;t they get bored or tired after a while? Guess not. I hope to God mine aren\u0026rsquo;t like that! We got to port just a few minutes after the metro stopped running, so we had to hire a cab for the ride back to our hotstel on Kydathineon street downtown\u0026ndash;and of course the cabbie tried to up the price on us when we left. Ridiculous!\nThe next day was one of traveling. Rachel and I left our hostel mid-morning, taking leave of our traveling companion Victor; we made it to the airport OK, then took a Swiss Air flight to Zurich (before which, we were able to get into the British Airways club for an hour and have sandwiches, beer, and internet\u0026ndash;thank you AA Platinum!). Zurich was a well-designed airport, but very hot. Our layover was not long, however, and soon we were on our rather small regional jet over to Prague!\nWhen we arrived in Prague, the weather was cool and very refreshing\u0026ndash;I was glad to be able to break out my jacket, finally. We took a crowded bus (it was 6 PM) to the crowded metro [to Namesti Miru], then another crowded above-ground tram to our hostel, the Czech Inn. It was by far the cleanest and nicest hostel I\u0026rsquo;ve stayed in, and cheap too! It\u0026rsquo;s brand new, and done in a very elegant modern decor, all sans-serify. Moreover, the bar was excellent, with equally excellent Czech beer on tap, at about $2 a liter. My sister rushed off just as soon as we arrived to go to a dance with a friend of hers from Capernwray, Peter, who\u0026rsquo;s from Prague. While she was busy being the belle of the ball, I entertained myself with beer and some Czech snacks [consisting of clumps of cheese, oil, onions, and rye bread; it looked and sounded disgusting, but went perfectly with the beer]. After a while, Rachel\u0026rsquo;s traveling buddy from Capernwray, Vince [who\u0026rsquo;d been traveling with Rachel in the UK earlier], showed up. He was to join her and my mom and brother (due to arrive the next day) for the next few weeks. I went to bed exhausted and pleasantly full.\nThe next day (Friday), Rachel, Vince, and I were met early by Petr and his friend, also Petr. The two of them acted as tour guides for us pretty much the entire day, taking us to some of the main spots in Prague, but more often to out-of-the-way places where there weren\u0026rsquo;t as many tourists. It was wonderful to have people who were knowledgeable about the city, and who could translate for us! [This was particularly important at lunch, when we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been able to tell the (important) difference between, say, pork and tripe] We visited the national park otuside the city, walked through the center, then went to Vysehrad where we had lunch at a very local pub-type place and ate some traditional Czech food.\nIn the afternoon, I learned that some of Petr\u0026rsquo;s other friends were going rock climbing, so I asked if I could go with them. Around 4;30, I met up with them at Dejvicka station and we were off to the gym (though they didn\u0026rsquo;t really speak English, except for one guy, and I never really figured out their names). The gym was pretty far out of town, and it was insane\u0026ndash;all top-rope, and all lead\u0026ndash;so even the first-timers were being taught how to lead-climb at the same time as they were learning how to tie in! Crazy. I climbed OK\u0026ndash;I was dehydrated from too much beer at lunch and no water subsequently, but had a good time nonetheless. [In fact, after a couple hours of climbing, I experienced some strange temporary blindness, until I drank 1.5 liters of water in about 5 minutes] Anyways, I thought we were going to be there about 3 hours, then meet back up with Petr and Rachel and Vince (and hopefully my mom and brother, who were scheduled to arrive then) for tea and dinner. Instead, we were at the climbing gym for about 6 hours\u0026ndash;until it closed at 10:30. Ahh culture differences! Well, it was great to climb, and fun to do something, some activity, with all-local people, where we didn\u0026rsquo;t even really need to speak the same language\u0026ndash;climbing was universal! It was fun to have that connection.\nAnyway, by the time I finally made it back to the hostel, David and my mom had already arrived and gone out to diner with everyone (they wisely brought back leftovers for me!) and it was great to see them, since it\u0026rsquo;d been a really long time. We were all exhausted, so I had one more beer for the day, and we all went to bed.\nSaturday was our \u0026ldquo;be a tourist in Prague\u0026rdquo; day. We went to all the major sites, took pictures, browsed shops, etc\u0026hellip; I was surprised at how touristy Prague was for what was, in my opinion, not a whole lot of really remarkable things. Or maybe I just didn\u0026rsquo;t care as much about statues as those people. Anyway, we had a great and long day, walking, cafeing, talking, etc. That night (last night), since I was leaving this morning, just us Lipps went out to dinner at a really excellent cellar pub, again with excellent and cheap beer. We talked about all sorts of stuff and it felt good to reconnect as a family\u0026ndash;we haven\u0026rsquo;t really all seen each other in a long time.\nBack at the hostel, we said our goodbyes and packed up. I was to leave in about 4 hours, and the rest were to be off mid-morning, starting the long train journey around Europe. We each had a shot of Absinthe to commemorate the adventure, and that was it! I woke up on time, made it through the extremely-crowded 5:30 AM bus trip to the airport, and made my flight to LHR. There was some security trouble or emergency there, so I almost missed my connection to JFK, but here I am on the flight!\nIt really was an incredible trip, and one I will remember forever. I was glad to see new places, to hang out with my sister, to start learning Greek, and to have lots of good transcendental plane/boat rides. Hopefully the fruit of these times will be evident soon\u0026ndash;already I\u0026rsquo;m glad to have been working on my \u0026ldquo;Things that are true\u0026rdquo; list, since I believe there are a number of valuable insights there, pertaining to the issues I mentioned in the first entry of this journal. So there we have it! Thanks to God for a safe and awesome trip. Amen.\nThere we have it, indeed. Not a super-exciting trip journal, but I hope it was at least moderately enjoyable. I think I gained the most benefit from just setting aside time periodically to write, and with pen and paper\u0026ndash;no computer glare or anything else to do. As I mentioned, though, most of the more intense and focused writing centered around a certain list, which I very simply titled \u0026ldquo;Things that are true\u0026rdquo;. I\u0026rsquo;ll reproduce that here soon, as the preface to a question I want your help in answering, but first I wanted to get pictures up for you all to look at, which will provide a break from all this text. So stay tuned, pictures coming up!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-travelogue-part-vi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(this is part VI of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/343\"\u003epart I\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/347\"\u003epart II\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/351\"\u003epart III\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/352\"\u003epart IV\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/354\"\u003epart V\u003c/a\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4-9, 11:30 AM, Somewhere over the Atlantic\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWow, has it really been 5 days \u003cem\u003e[since I last wrote]\u003c/em\u003e? Shamefully, I did not write at all during the visit to Prague. Now, I\u0026rsquo;m sitting on the plane from LHR to JFK, so I have time to wrap up this trip journal. (That is, if the worst flight attendant in the world will stop being a jerk about my bags on the floor). \u003cem\u003e[She had given me this really pathetic, patronizing lecture about exit row protocol, using a voice that I would only use with a 2-year-old, wearing a smile that was oozing smug sarcasm. Ugh.]\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell, the morning after I last wrote, my sister and I had some amazing breakfast crepes in Fira\u0026ndash;the best I\u0026rsquo;ve ever had. After that, I did end up finding a greek Orthodox bookstore, where the proprietors did not speak very much English, but I hung out with them for a while, and eventually picked up a wonderful New Testament, with one page of each pair being the ancient Greek, and the other being modern (though I learned they still use the polytonic accents in the modern translation, out of reverence for the text). With that, our time in Santorini was more or less over, and we dutifully endured the long ferry ride back to Peiraias. It was quite a bit more crowded than before, and of course the one screaming child in our cabin was seated right next to me. I don\u0026rsquo;t understand obnoxious screaming kids. Don\u0026rsquo;t they get bored or tired after a while? Guess not. I hope to God mine aren\u0026rsquo;t like that! We got to port just a few minutes after the metro stopped running, so we had to hire a cab for the ride back to our hotstel on Kydathineon street downtown\u0026ndash;and of course the cabbie tried to up the price on us when we left. Ridiculous!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe next day was one of traveling. Rachel and I left our hostel mid-morning, taking leave of our traveling companion Victor; we made it to the airport OK, then took a Swiss Air flight to Zurich (before which, we were able to get into the British Airways club for an hour and have sandwiches, beer, and internet\u0026ndash;thank you AA Platinum!). Zurich was a well-designed airport, but very hot. Our layover was not long, however, and soon we were on our rather small regional jet over to Prague!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we arrived in Prague, the weather was cool and very refreshing\u0026ndash;I was glad to be able to break out my jacket, finally. We took a crowded bus (it was 6 PM) to the crowded metro \u003cem\u003e[to Namesti Miru]\u003c/em\u003e, then another crowded above-ground tram to our hostel, the \u003ca href=\"http://czech-inn.cz\"\u003eCzech Inn\u003c/a\u003e. It was by far the cleanest and nicest hostel I\u0026rsquo;ve stayed in, and cheap too! It\u0026rsquo;s brand new, and done in a very elegant modern decor, all sans-serify. Moreover, the bar was excellent, with equally excellent Czech beer on tap, at about $2 a liter. My sister rushed off just as soon as we arrived to go to a dance with a friend of hers from Capernwray, Peter, who\u0026rsquo;s from Prague. While she was busy being the belle of the ball, I entertained myself with beer and some Czech snacks \u003cem\u003e[consisting of clumps of cheese, oil, onions, and rye bread; it looked and sounded disgusting, but went perfectly with the beer]\u003c/em\u003e. After a while, Rachel\u0026rsquo;s traveling buddy from Capernwray, Vince \u003cem\u003e[who\u0026rsquo;d been traveling with Rachel in the UK earlier]\u003c/em\u003e, showed up. He was to join her and my mom and brother (due to arrive the next day) for the next few weeks. I went to bed exhausted and pleasantly full.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe next day (Friday), Rachel, Vince, and I were met early by Petr and his friend, also Petr. The two of them acted as tour guides for us pretty much the entire day, taking us to some of the main spots in Prague, but more often to out-of-the-way places where there weren\u0026rsquo;t as many tourists. It was wonderful to have people who were knowledgeable about the city, and who could translate for us! \u003cem\u003e[This was particularly important at lunch, when we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been able to tell the (important) difference between, say, pork and tripe]\u003c/em\u003e We visited the national park otuside the city, walked through the center, then went to Vysehrad where we had lunch at a very local pub-type place and ate some traditional Czech food.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the afternoon, I learned that some of Petr\u0026rsquo;s other friends were going rock climbing, so I asked if I could go with them. Around 4;30, I met up with them at Dejvicka station and we were off to the gym (though they didn\u0026rsquo;t really speak English, except for one guy, and I never really figured out their names). The gym was pretty far out of town, and it was insane\u0026ndash;all top-rope, and all lead\u0026ndash;so even the first-timers were being taught how to lead-climb at the same time as they were learning how to tie in! Crazy. I climbed OK\u0026ndash;I was dehydrated from too much beer at lunch and no water subsequently, but had a good time nonetheless. \u003cem\u003e[In fact, after a couple hours of climbing, I experienced some strange temporary blindness, until I drank 1.5 liters of water in about 5 minutes]\u003c/em\u003e Anyways, I thought we were going to be there about 3 hours, then meet back up with Petr and Rachel and Vince (and hopefully my mom and brother, who were scheduled to arrive then) for tea and dinner. Instead, we were at the climbing gym for about 6 hours\u0026ndash;until it closed at 10:30. Ahh culture differences! Well, it was great to climb, and fun to do something, some activity, with all-local people, where we didn\u0026rsquo;t even really need to speak the same language\u0026ndash;climbing was universal! It was fun to have that connection.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnyway, by the time I finally made it back to the hostel, David and my mom had already arrived and gone out to diner with everyone (they wisely brought back leftovers for me!) and it was great to see them, since it\u0026rsquo;d been a really long time. We were all exhausted, so I had one more beer for the day, and we all went to bed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSaturday was our \u0026ldquo;be a tourist in Prague\u0026rdquo; day. We went to all the major sites, took pictures, browsed shops, etc\u0026hellip; I was surprised at how touristy Prague was for what was, in my opinion, not a whole lot of really remarkable things. Or maybe I just didn\u0026rsquo;t care as much about statues as those people. Anyway, we had a great and long day, walking, cafeing, talking, etc. That night (last night), since I was leaving this morning, just us Lipps went out to dinner at a really excellent cellar pub, again with excellent and cheap beer. We talked about all sorts of stuff and it felt good to reconnect as a family\u0026ndash;we haven\u0026rsquo;t really all seen each other in a long time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack at the hostel, we said our goodbyes and packed up. I was to leave in about 4 hours, and the rest were to be off mid-morning, starting the long train journey around Europe. We each had a shot of Absinthe to commemorate the adventure, and that was it! I woke up on time, made it through the extremely-crowded 5:30 AM bus trip to the airport, and made my flight to LHR. There was some security trouble or emergency there, so I almost missed my connection to JFK, but here I am on the flight!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt really was an incredible trip, and one I will remember forever. I was glad to see new places, to hang out with my sister, to start learning Greek, and to have lots of good transcendental plane/boat rides. Hopefully the fruit of these times will be evident soon\u0026ndash;already I\u0026rsquo;m glad to have been working on my \u0026ldquo;Things that are true\u0026rdquo; list, since I believe there are a number of valuable insights there, pertaining to the issues I mentioned in the first entry of this journal. So there we have it! Thanks to God for a safe and awesome trip. Amen.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Travelogue, Part VI"},{"content":"(this is part V of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read part I, part II, part III, and part IV)\n4-4, 11:30 PM, Fira, Santorini\nPicking up where we left off\u0026hellip;after the sunset, we had an hour\u0026rsquo;s wait in a cold drizzle for the bus back to Fira. When we got the hotel, we bid goodnight to the ladies (and hello to Victor, since he\u0026rsquo;d been elsewhere all day), and also goodbye, since the girls were scheduled out on a boat the next day. Then I proceeded to have what has been the best sleep of the trip, so far, by far: about 12 hours, with none of that waking-up-at-4am-wide-awake nonsense that sometimes happens.\nThat brings us to today. Today was somewhat less exciting, but very relaxing. Rachel and I spent most of it wandering around Fira, looking at random shops, drinking coffee, eating crepes, buying books, and so on. I had a lot of time to read and write, and also to play with the numerous dogs which roam freely about Greek streets. For the most part, they are clean, well-behaved, and healthy-looking animals\u0026ndash;our tour guide in Athens said the government actually takes care of them! Dogs are great. Anyway, we had a late dinner with Victor, then a few drinks with him and a Canadian couple at an Irish bar here in Fira. I didn\u0026rsquo;t like it\u0026ndash;the bar felt fake, with American waitresses and music. I suppose if I\u0026rsquo;d been gone for longer, I\u0026rsquo;d have liked it, but it felt wrong in this place, like it was spoilng something. It was there that someone told me that Florida won the NCAA basketball championship vs UCLA\u0026ndash;which, if true, means I had a really awesome basketball bracket. Well, time for bed\u0026ndash;tomorrow I hope to find a modern Greek Bible, then we\u0026rsquo;re on the afternoon ferry back to Athens, where we\u0026rsquo;ll spend the night. We had to Prague the day after (Thursday)!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-travelogue-part-v/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(this is part V of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/343\"\u003epart I\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/347\"\u003epart II\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/351\"\u003epart III\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/352\"\u003epart IV\u003c/a\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4-4, 11:30 PM, Fira, Santorini\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePicking up where we left off\u0026hellip;after the sunset, we had an hour\u0026rsquo;s wait in a cold drizzle for the bus back to Fira. When we got the hotel, we bid goodnight to the ladies (and hello to Victor, since he\u0026rsquo;d been elsewhere all day), and also goodbye, since the girls were scheduled out on a boat the next day. Then I proceeded to have what has been the best sleep of the trip, so far, by far: about 12 hours, with none of that waking-up-at-4am-wide-awake nonsense that sometimes happens.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat brings us to today. Today was somewhat less exciting, but very relaxing. Rachel and I spent most of it wandering around Fira, looking at random shops, drinking coffee, eating crepes, buying books, and so on. I had a lot of time to read and write, and also to play with the numerous dogs which roam freely about Greek streets. For the most part, they are clean, well-behaved, and healthy-looking animals\u0026ndash;our tour guide in Athens said the government actually takes care of them! Dogs are great. Anyway, we had a late dinner with Victor, then a few drinks with him and a Canadian couple at an Irish bar here in Fira. I didn\u0026rsquo;t like it\u0026ndash;the bar felt fake, with American waitresses and music. I suppose if I\u0026rsquo;d been gone for longer, I\u0026rsquo;d have liked it, but it felt wrong in this place, like it was spoilng something. It was there that someone told me that Florida won the NCAA basketball championship vs UCLA\u0026ndash;which, if true, means I had a really awesome basketball bracket. Well, time for bed\u0026ndash;tomorrow I hope to find a modern Greek Bible, then we\u0026rsquo;re on the afternoon ferry back to Athens, where we\u0026rsquo;ll spend the night. We had to Prague the day after (Thursday)!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Travelogue, Part V"},{"content":"(this is part IV of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read part I, part II, and part III)\n4-4, 6:05 PM, Fira, Santorini\nThe last few days have been incredible. The long ferry ride to Santorini was peaceful, and productive. I thought, wandered the boat, stared at the myriad passing islands, read Greek, and watched Howl\u0026rsquo;s Moving Castle. Like all Hayao Miyazaki\u0026rsquo;s films, it was excellent. Like the others, there was a story, but it refused to let you see any character as totally good or bad, or totally on one side or another.\nWhen we got to Santorini, Victor, Deana, and Lisa (new friends from the Athens hostel and tour, respectively) joined us in the ride from the new port up the windy hill road to our hotel at Φίρα (Fira). The accomodations are good\u0026ndash;2 beds, couch, bathroom, kitchenette, patio for 20 euros a night per person (Loizos apartments). That first night 4 of us booked an island-hopping boat tour for the next day, then wandered around Fira to find a place to eat. We were persuaded to sit down at a cafe/bar overlooking the sunset-ready sea, where the management ordered some cheap and good gyros from another place, and furnished us with a steady supply of ouzo and beer. We had a downright beautiful show of a sunset, and stayed for hours talking, drinking, laughing, and hanging out with our Albanian waiter, Roland. We got back home after 11, buzzed and ready to fall asleep.\nThe next morning (Monday, the 3rd), Rachel and I were awake early to buy food supplies at the supermarket with which to avoid paying lots for lunch and breakfast. We readied for the day, which promised to be warm, donning swimsuits and making sandwiches. We took the 600 long steps down to the old port, where we arrived in plenty of time for our 10:30 tour boat departure. The boat took us and the roughly 40 other tourists first to the volcanic island in the middle of what used to be the Santorini atoll [or caldera]. We disembarked and hiked around for an hour and a half, following our tour guide as she pointed out random craters and shared local myths. There was a continuous stream of mumbling from everyone about how difficult the hike was, about which I had many an internal smug smile, since I wasn\u0026rsquo;t breaking a sweat. Rachel was doing equally awesome, too.\nNext came one of the more memorable parts of the trip so far. Our boat took us around the volcano (which, incidentally, was the site of the most violent volcanic eruption in recorded history\u0026ndash;weighing in at 20 times the power of Hiroshima, the shock wave was heard 3 times by all the earth\u0026rsquo;s inhabitants, as the force of the eruption rippled through the air, around the earth again and again) to a smaller island, where there were reportedly some hot springs. The boat had to stay a ways out from the island because of the rocks, so all those interested in visiting the hot springs were asked to dive into the ocean and swim to shore, where the spring was supposedly just offshore, amidst a patch of brown, sediment-filled water. Everyone who went was required to be a strong swimmer, because it was probably 125-150 meters from where we dropped anchor to the spring. It being by that time a very hot day, I was glad to be the first to dive off the side of the boat and let my muscles pull my smoothly to the springs. I have no real swimming training, though, and so by the time I reached the brown patch, my form was much less than smooth, and I was exhausted. Moreover, there was not a noticeable difference between the ocean\u0026rsquo;s temperature and these \u0026ldquo;hot\u0026rdquo; springs, with the result that after I stopped moving, I was cold. [Incidentally, between the springs at last year\u0026rsquo;s dude\u0026rsquo;s camping trip at Big Sur, and now these Greek ones, I have officially sworn off any \u0026ldquo;hot\u0026rdquo; springs boasting a temperature of less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It\u0026rsquo;s just not worth it.] I was shivering uncontrollably and having a very unpleasant time, so I made my way back to the boat, which was harder due to the current at that location. Nevertheless, moving was much better than sitting still, and when I climbed the boat ladder, my muscles full of lactic acid, I felt refreshed and alive. But even in the hot sun, with my black jacket on, my teeth were chattering for almost the next hour.\nThe third stop on our tour was the island of Θιράσσια (Thirassia), a gorgeous, rocky-coastlined island with only 300 inhabitants. There we had lunch and I took some time by myself to run up the cliff path and explore the town up there. when I reached the top and wandered alone through the empty streets and through flower-strewn fields, I felt an astounding sense of peace. It seemed that in that place, life and time moved together at the correct speed. I wanted to stay for hours, but our boat was scheduled to leave, so I ran back down the stone path to the dock and we were off.\nThe fourth and last stop of the day was at the port of Ωια (Ia), and there the 4 of us (me, Rachel, Deana, Lisa) decided to leave the tour and walk up the cliff path to the town, which is one of the most picturesque in all the Greek isles. It was then only mid-afternoon, and we wanted to see the sunset, so we killed time for a while by wandering, sitting in the shade, reading, and napping. Everywhere I looked, beauty attended my glance, and I wore out my camera with photos of houses, churches, the sea, other islands, etc\u0026hellip; As sunset neared, we got gyros at a stand and walked to an old tower on a point, from which was supposed to be the best view. Unfortunately, a swift-moving cold front decided to bring many clouds, which blocked the sun and spoiled (we thought) our hope for a beautiful scene. Sadly, we made our way to the bust stop, where we arrived just in time to see the sun dip in between two cloud layers, and light the entire sky with absolutely unreal shades of pink and purple. Had there not been power lines and ugly houses in the way from that spot, it might have been the most beautiful (albeit short) sunset I\u0026rsquo;ve seen. Oh well\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s the result of lack of faith!\n[Then it was time to leave for dinner\u0026hellip;to be continued\u0026hellip;]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-travelogue-part-iv/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(this is part IV of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/343\"\u003epart I\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/347\"\u003epart II\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/351\"\u003epart III\u003c/a\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4-4, 6:05 PM, Fira, Santorini\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe last few days have been incredible. The long ferry ride to Santorini was peaceful, and productive. I thought, wandered the boat, stared at the myriad passing islands, read Greek, and watched \u003cem\u003eHowl\u0026rsquo;s Moving Castle\u003c/em\u003e. Like all Hayao Miyazaki\u0026rsquo;s films, it was excellent. Like the others, there was a story, but it refused to let you see any character as totally good or bad, or totally on one side or another.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we got to Santorini, Victor, Deana, and Lisa (new friends from the Athens hostel and tour, respectively) joined us in the ride from the new port up the windy hill road to our hotel at Φίρα (Fira). The accomodations are good\u0026ndash;2 beds, couch, bathroom, kitchenette, patio for 20 euros a night per person (Loizos apartments). That first night 4 of us booked an island-hopping boat tour for the next day, then wandered around Fira to find a place to eat. We were persuaded to sit down at a cafe/bar overlooking the sunset-ready sea, where the management ordered some cheap and good gyros from another place, and furnished us with a steady supply of ouzo and beer. We had a downright beautiful show of a sunset, and stayed for hours talking, drinking, laughing, and hanging out with our Albanian waiter, Roland. We got back home after 11, buzzed and ready to fall asleep.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe next morning (Monday, the 3rd), Rachel and I were awake early to buy food supplies at the supermarket with which to avoid paying lots for lunch and breakfast. We readied for the day, which promised to be warm, donning swimsuits and making sandwiches. We took the 600 long steps down to the old port, where we arrived in plenty of time for our 10:30 tour boat departure. The boat took us and the roughly 40 other tourists first to the volcanic island in the middle of what used to be the Santorini atoll \u003cem\u003e[or caldera]\u003c/em\u003e. We disembarked and hiked around for an hour and a half, following our tour guide as she pointed out random craters and shared local myths. There was a continuous stream of mumbling from everyone about how difficult the hike was, about which I had many an internal smug smile, since I wasn\u0026rsquo;t breaking a sweat. Rachel was doing equally awesome, too.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNext came one of the more memorable parts of the trip so far. Our boat took us around the volcano (which, incidentally, was the site of the most violent volcanic eruption in recorded history\u0026ndash;weighing in at 20 times the power of Hiroshima, the shock wave was heard 3 times by all the earth\u0026rsquo;s inhabitants, as the force of the eruption rippled through the air, around the earth again and again) to a smaller island, where there were reportedly some hot springs. The boat had to stay a ways out from the island because of the rocks, so all those interested in visiting the hot springs were asked to dive into the ocean and swim to shore, where the spring was supposedly just offshore, amidst a patch of brown, sediment-filled water. Everyone who went was required to be a strong swimmer, because it was probably 125-150 meters from where we dropped anchor to the spring. It being by that time a very hot day, I was glad to be the first to dive off the side of the boat and let my muscles pull my smoothly to the springs. I have no real swimming training, though, and so by the time I reached the brown patch, my form was much less than smooth, and I was exhausted. Moreover, there was not a noticeable difference between the ocean\u0026rsquo;s temperature and these \u0026ldquo;hot\u0026rdquo; springs, with the result that after I stopped moving, I was \u003cem\u003ecold\u003c/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003e[Incidentally, between the springs at last year\u0026rsquo;s dude\u0026rsquo;s camping trip at Big Sur, and now these Greek ones, I have officially sworn off any \u0026ldquo;hot\u0026rdquo; springs boasting a temperature of less than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It\u0026rsquo;s just not worth it.]\u003c/em\u003e I was shivering uncontrollably and having a very unpleasant time, so I made my way back to the boat, which was harder due to the current at that location. Nevertheless, moving was much better than sitting still, and when I climbed the boat ladder, my muscles full of lactic acid, I felt refreshed and alive. But even in the hot sun, with my black jacket on, my teeth were chattering for almost the next hour.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third stop on our tour was the island of Θιράσσια (Thirassia), a gorgeous, rocky-coastlined island with only 300 inhabitants. There we had lunch and I took some time by myself to run up the cliff path and explore the town up there. when I reached the top and wandered alone through the empty streets and through flower-strewn fields, I felt an astounding sense of peace. It seemed that in that place, life and time moved together at the correct speed. I wanted to stay for hours, but our boat was scheduled to leave, so I ran back down the stone path to the dock and we were off.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fourth and last stop of the day was at the port of Ωια (Ia), and there the 4 of us (me, Rachel, Deana, Lisa) decided to leave the tour and walk up the cliff path to the town, which is one of the most picturesque in all the Greek isles. It was then only mid-afternoon, and we wanted to see the sunset, so we killed time for a while by wandering, sitting in the shade, reading, and napping. Everywhere I looked, beauty attended my glance, and I wore out my camera with photos of houses, churches, the sea, other islands, etc\u0026hellip; As sunset neared, we got gyros at a stand and walked to an old tower on a point, from which was supposed to be the best view. Unfortunately, a swift-moving cold front decided to bring many clouds, which blocked the sun and spoiled (we thought) our hope for a beautiful scene. Sadly, we made our way to the bust stop, where we arrived just in time to see the sun dip in between two cloud layers, and light the entire sky with absolutely unreal shades of pink and purple. Had there not been power lines and ugly houses in the way from that spot, it might have been the most beautiful (albeit short) sunset I\u0026rsquo;ve seen. Oh well\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s the result of lack of faith!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e[Then it was time to leave for dinner\u0026hellip;to be continued\u0026hellip;]\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Travelogue, Part IV"},{"content":"(this is part III of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read part I and part II)\n4-2, 8:11 AM, The Aegean\nI slept fitfully last night\u0026hellip;it didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like I slept at all, but 5:30 AM eventually did come. Rachel and I were out of the hostel at 6, meeting up with our hostel-mate Victor, who was traveling to Santorini on the same boat as us. We walked the deserted Athens streets and caught the Metro to Peiraias in time to buy a sandwich and board our ferry\u0026ndash;a large, cruise-style ferry with first class, cabins, etc\u0026hellip; I think it counts as the biggest ship I have ever sailed on. The seats are large and comfortable! When we set sail, I went to the deck and took pictures of the sunrise as we were leaving port. Again, there was a sense of excitement, as well as a sense of deep sadness. Here at this port and in this ocean were spawned the tales of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Great men and adventurers saw the same hills as they worked their sails in the harbor. Then, leaving was actually meaningful\u0026ndash;the weather was fickle, and there was never a sure return. Traveling took adventure and commitment. Now, all it takes is 30 euros. The port was bustling this morning, as it would have been 2,500 years ago, but today it was filled with the noise and smell of cars, and the waiting ships spouted black smoke in the air. What sadness! Are there any adventures left? It doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem so. The ocean is a sea of calm, barely a ripple as we glide through. But I wish, just a little, that a storm would come and make things more interesting.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-travelogue-part-iii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(this is part III of my recent European trip journal. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t seen them yet, you should read \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/343\"\u003epart I\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/347\"\u003epart II\u003c/a\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4-2, 8:11 AM, The Aegean\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI slept fitfully last night\u0026hellip;it didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like I slept at all, but 5:30 AM eventually did come. Rachel and I were out of the hostel at 6, meeting up with our hostel-mate Victor, who was traveling to Santorini on the same boat as us. We walked the deserted Athens streets and caught the Metro to Peiraias in time to buy a sandwich and board our ferry\u0026ndash;a large, cruise-style ferry with first class, cabins, etc\u0026hellip; I think it counts as the biggest ship I have ever sailed on. The seats are large and comfortable! When we set sail, I went to the deck and took pictures of the sunrise as we were leaving port. Again, there was a sense of excitement, as well as a sense of deep sadness. Here at this port and in this ocean were spawned the tales of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Great men and adventurers saw the same hills as they worked their sails in the harbor. Then, leaving was actually meaningful\u0026ndash;the weather was fickle, and there was never a sure return. Traveling took adventure and commitment. Now, all it takes is 30 euros. The port was bustling this morning, as it would have been 2,500 years ago, but today it was filled with the noise and smell of cars, and the waiting ships spouted black smoke in the air. What sadness! Are there any adventures left? It doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem so. The ocean is a sea of calm, barely a ripple as we glide through. But I wish, just a little, that a storm would come and make things more interesting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Travelogue, Part III"},{"content":"(this is a continuation of my recent trip journal\u0026hellip;be sure to read part I if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already)\n4-1, 7:30 PM, Athens\nSo we arrived OK. After a long, cramped ride from Chicago to London, I settled in at British Airways\u0026rsquo; executive lounge, where Rachel arrived shortly after I did. It was good to see her, and she looked all pro with her backpack and whatnot. We had a long layover, and boarded our plane to Athens around 9:45 PM. We\u0026rsquo;d tried to talk about how things were going with us [our relationship] in Heathrow, but I was very tired and kind of annoyed so it didn\u0026rsquo;t really go anywhere. It didn\u0026rsquo;t help that I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get my mind off of \u0026ldquo;my troubles\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;made worse in public places, where there are hundreds of girls for me to be constantly evaluating\u0026ndash;not sexually or anything, just\u0026hellip; [hmm, this one is kind of hard to explain sensibly\u0026hellip;]. So, the peace of airplane solitude was definitely broken.\nOn the seat in front of us on the flight, there was a young Greek woman, and I realized again how attracted I am to foreign girls. Something about speaking other languages just makes them infinitely more beautiful\u0026hellip;I wonder if that\u0026rsquo;s something that would wear off, if it\u0026rsquo;s something I should really care about or look for\u0026hellip;I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Is it true mystery or just surface mystery? Probably depends [just like with women in my own culture] on the girl.\nAnyway, our flight got in on time, and Rach and I found the bus to Syntagma square alright\u0026ndash;10 minutes later, and we were waking up the receptionist at our hostel! The room was small but we were tired, and it was after 4 AM. The next day we slept until about 2 PM, then braved the ancient Athens streets for the first time. I was pretty amazed by how close our place was to the center of everything\u0026ndash;the Acropolis, the temples, etc\u0026hellip; Rach and I found a grocery store and got a loaf of bread and some chicken salad for lunch. Not quite gyros, but cheap. Then we proceeded to get ourselves lost until dinner, taking in the maze of old streets, the views of the agora [the ancient agora] and the acropolis which promised an enjoyable morrow. [Even though] tired, we decided to walk across town to the Lykebatos hill, on which was a church and some awesome views of just-past-sunset Athens. Food there being too expensive, we walked all the way back to our hostel and ate at an estiatorio [restaurant] next door around 9 PM\u0026ndash;the meal, which was excellent, lasted till 11 or so!\nThis morning, being Saturday, the 1st, we woke up relatively early to go on our walking tour. It was as you\u0026rsquo;d expect such tours would be\u0026ndash;a lot of walking interspersed with some ancient monuments. Being some of the most important ancient monuments in the world, it was an incredible experience. In the space of 15 minutes I\u0026rsquo;d stood where Socrates had taught, and sat where Paul had preached in the Areopagus. So much history I was overwhelmed by it\u0026ndash;but the hundreds of other tourists there didn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be\u0026ndash;talking, laughing, smoking, littering\u0026hellip;on the Areopagus, the stone smelled of cheap beer from a recently-broken bottle. It made me angry at humanity, both specifically for littering there, and more generally for creeping with its ugly modernity over and into places which should have been kept holy as monuments to the more important kinds of progress\u0026ndash;philosophical and religious, for example.\nIn my opinion, to be in ancient Athens and to be anything but in awe is to be disrespectful of our own nature\u0026ndash;all that God has given us to be. So in that sense I\u0026rsquo;m actually quite glad I don\u0026rsquo;t live here\u0026ndash;these monuments can thus stay mysterious and far-away, otherworldly. The chattering tourist mob still kind of ruined it for me, but at least my imagination could still conjure up the sights and smells of a bygone era, when people were probably exactly how they were today, in terms of forgetting how to be in awe. Even then, better to have been the pilgrim from a distant village than a desensitized resident of the Acropolis. Well, I\u0026rsquo;m rambling\u0026ndash;I should get Rachel and find a place to eat dinner. Tonight we pack, for tomorrow we leave very early for the boat to Santorini, where we\u0026rsquo;ll spend the next 3 days!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-travelogue-part-ii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(this is a continuation of my recent trip journal\u0026hellip;be sure to read \u003ca href=\"http://www.teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/343\"\u003epart I\u003c/a\u003e if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4-1, 7:30 PM, Athens\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo we arrived OK. After a long, cramped ride from Chicago to London, I settled in at British Airways\u0026rsquo; executive lounge, where Rachel arrived shortly after I did. It was good to see her, and she looked all pro with her backpack and whatnot. We had a long layover, and boarded our plane to Athens around 9:45 PM. We\u0026rsquo;d tried to talk about how things were going with us \u003cem\u003e[our relationship]\u003c/em\u003e in Heathrow, but I was very tired and kind of annoyed so it didn\u0026rsquo;t really go anywhere. It didn\u0026rsquo;t help that I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get my mind off of \u0026ldquo;my troubles\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;made worse in public places, where there are hundreds of girls for me to be constantly evaluating\u0026ndash;not sexually or anything, just\u0026hellip; \u003cem\u003e[hmm, this one is kind of hard to explain sensibly\u0026hellip;]\u003c/em\u003e. So, the peace of airplane solitude was definitely broken.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the seat in front of us on the flight, there was a young Greek woman, and I realized again how attracted I am to foreign girls. Something about speaking other languages just makes them infinitely more beautiful\u0026hellip;I wonder if that\u0026rsquo;s something that would wear off, if it\u0026rsquo;s something I should really care about or look for\u0026hellip;I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Is it true mystery or just surface mystery? Probably depends \u003cem\u003e[just like with women in my own culture]\u003c/em\u003e on the girl.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnyway, our flight got in on time, and Rach and I found the bus to Syntagma square alright\u0026ndash;10 minutes later, and we were waking up the receptionist at our hostel! The room was small but we were tired, and it was after 4 AM. The next day we slept until about 2 PM, then braved the ancient Athens streets for the first time. I was pretty amazed by how close our place was to the center of everything\u0026ndash;the Acropolis, the temples, etc\u0026hellip; Rach and I found a grocery store and got a loaf of bread and some chicken salad for lunch. Not quite gyros, but cheap. Then we proceeded to get ourselves lost until dinner, taking in the maze of old streets, the views of the agora \u003cem\u003e[the ancient agora]\u003c/em\u003e and the acropolis which promised an enjoyable morrow. \u003cem\u003e[Even though]\u003c/em\u003e tired, we decided to walk across town to the Lykebatos hill, on which was a church and some awesome views of just-past-sunset Athens. Food there being too expensive, we walked all the way back to our hostel and ate at an estiatorio \u003cem\u003e[restaurant]\u003c/em\u003e next door around 9 PM\u0026ndash;the meal, which was excellent, lasted till 11 or so!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis morning, being Saturday, the 1st, we woke up relatively early to go on our walking tour. It was as you\u0026rsquo;d expect such tours would be\u0026ndash;a lot of walking interspersed with some ancient monuments. Being some of the most important ancient monuments in the world, it was an incredible experience. In the space of 15 minutes I\u0026rsquo;d stood where Socrates had taught, and sat where Paul had preached in the Areopagus. So much history I was overwhelmed by it\u0026ndash;but the hundreds of other tourists there didn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be\u0026ndash;talking, laughing, smoking, littering\u0026hellip;on the Areopagus, the stone smelled of cheap beer from a recently-broken bottle. It made me angry at humanity, both specifically for littering there, and more generally for creeping with its ugly modernity over and into places which should have been kept holy as monuments to the more important kinds of progress\u0026ndash;philosophical and religious, for example.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my opinion, to be in ancient Athens and to be anything but in awe is to be disrespectful of our own nature\u0026ndash;all that God has given us to be. So in that sense I\u0026rsquo;m actually quite glad I don\u0026rsquo;t live here\u0026ndash;these monuments can thus stay mysterious and far-away, otherworldly. The chattering tourist mob still kind of ruined it for me, but at least my imagination could still conjure up the sights and smells of a bygone era, when people were probably exactly how they were today, in terms of forgetting how to be in awe. Even then, better to have been the pilgrim from a distant village than a desensitized resident of the Acropolis. Well, I\u0026rsquo;m rambling\u0026ndash;I should get Rachel and find a place to eat dinner. Tonight we pack, for tomorrow we leave very early for the boat to Santorini, where we\u0026rsquo;ll spend the next 3 days!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Travelogue, Part II"},{"content":"I am back from my week and a half of European travels! I had an excellent time, and a fruitful one, I think. For some reason I decided to keep a travel journal (which I never do), so I thought I might as well refactor it for the weblog. It\u0026rsquo;ll come in 5 or 6 installments, corresponding to the number of entries I wrote over the 11 or so days. I\u0026rsquo;ll probably put a couple of these up a day, so check back often and make sure you haven\u0026rsquo;t missed any! After the travelogue segment, I\u0026rsquo;ll post up some pictures and, most importantly, a special list that I kept adding to throughout the trip (which is referenced at least once in the journal\u0026ndash;so just hold your breath). Any post-trip edits will be italicized, and in brackets! I hope reading about the trip is enjoyable in some way\u0026hellip; Here we go!\n3-29, 10:40 AM, SFO\nWell, I don\u0026rsquo;t normally keep a journal of any kind apart from a weblog, but I feel that this trip may be an important one, so here I go. I\u0026rsquo;ve spent the last couple days preparing, and I feel that I haven\u0026rsquo;t forgotten anything important. my two major stresses are only that (a) something at Teleios might crash while I\u0026rsquo;m gone, and (b) I will feel really shy in situations where I can\u0026rsquo;t communicate in Greek or Czech. Grant me grace in both those things!\nI have some high hopes for the trip:\nI hope to get to know Rachel better and deepen our relationship significantly. I hope to take advantage of solitude on planes and being in new environments to take stock of life. I hope to understand and come to grips with my desire to live overseas, to see what is underneath and evaluate why it\u0026rsquo;s important. I hope to have many good conversations with God, in a way that only being outside my normal mode of existence can bring. I hope to become pretty good at basic Greek. Grant me success in all these things!\nOK, enough for now: time to learn more Greek. By the way, the official soundtrack for the trip is the album Peregrine, by The Appleseed Cast. It is dark and brooding, with occasional flashes of hope amidst chaos. Very representative of my life right now, actually.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/04/greece-prague-travelogue-part-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am back from my week and a half of European travels! I had an excellent time, and a fruitful one, I think. For some reason I decided to keep a travel journal (which I never do), so I thought I might as well refactor it for the weblog. It\u0026rsquo;ll come in 5 or 6 installments, corresponding to the number of entries I wrote over the 11 or so days. I\u0026rsquo;ll probably put a couple of these up a day, so check back often and make sure you haven\u0026rsquo;t missed any! After the travelogue segment, I\u0026rsquo;ll post up some pictures and, most importantly, a special list that I kept adding to throughout the trip (which is referenced at least once in the journal\u0026ndash;so just hold your breath). Any post-trip edits will be italicized, and in brackets! I hope reading about the trip is enjoyable in some way\u0026hellip; Here we go!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Greece / Prague Travelogue, Part I"},{"content":"In about 12 hours I\u0026rsquo;ll be taking the BART to SFO in order to fly to London, where I\u0026rsquo;ll meet my sister Rachel, who\u0026rsquo;s been doing a little backpacking around the UK. Together we\u0026rsquo;ll fly to Athens and spend about a week there. I\u0026rsquo;ve never been to Eastern Europe or the Mediterranean (apart from Barcelona), so I am very excited. Because we at Teleios (soon to be something else, hopefully) have been working furiously in preparation for the official launch of this website and more importantly our learning software, I haven\u0026rsquo;t had much time to focus on learning Greek, but I have been getting a minimal familiarity with the language. Ancient Greek doesn\u0026rsquo;t transfer super-well to understanding Modern, but it\u0026rsquo;s at least a good start, and I\u0026rsquo;ll certainly be able to read street signs for names.\nRachel and I aren\u0026rsquo;t too sure how we\u0026rsquo;re going to spend our days in Greece\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;ve heard that Athens is cool but not sustainable, so we\u0026rsquo;re going to try and visit some of the Isles or maybe some coast towns on the Peloponnesian.\nAfter Athens, we have a couple days planned in Prague, another place I haven\u0026rsquo;t been. The word on the street is that Prague is almost not cool any more, now that all backpacking college students know it\u0026rsquo;s a good place to visit\u0026hellip;but hopefully we\u0026rsquo;ll survive the tourism. Rachel has a friend from Capernwray who lives in Prague, and he has promised to show me where to find the best beer. Excellent!\nI\u0026rsquo;m obviously looking forward to every part of this adventure, but given that a lot of it will involve some cultural or linguistic stresses or awkwardnesses (and given that I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sensitive to those situations), I\u0026rsquo;m honestly looking forward, at this very moment, to the plane flights. I think I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned before how plane travel is a very \u0026ldquo;healing\u0026rdquo; sort of experience for me. It promotes the kind of solitude that helps me grow, helps me come to grips with myself, what I\u0026rsquo;m doing at the moment, what I\u0026rsquo;m doing in life, and so on. Since I\u0026rsquo;ve decided not to bring my computer along (can\u0026rsquo;t risk loss or damage), I\u0026rsquo;m also excited to have some companions who couldn\u0026rsquo;t possibly ask me to do work. I have 5 or 6 books which I hope to finish off, and I also put Howl\u0026rsquo;s Moving Castle on my iPod to watch, which I have been looking forward to seeing for a very long time.\nOf course, I\u0026rsquo;m also very excited to have some extended time with my sister, whom I don\u0026rsquo;t get to see very often, and who I\u0026rsquo;m sure has changed a lot after this past year of school abroad.\nI\u0026rsquo;m hoping that this trip will help provide clarity in my heart about what sorts of things I love, and maybe provide some clues about what I should be thinking about doing as I look ahead to next year and beyond. I have so many desires and dreams\u0026ndash;they need some kind of ordering scheme or I\u0026rsquo;ll never be able to make any decisions that I feel good about. Oh well, I\u0026rsquo;m rambling\u0026hellip;and I\u0026rsquo;ve got a lot of packing and e-mail writing to do. If I find a way to get on the inter nets where I\u0026rsquo;m going, I\u0026rsquo;ll try and check in here. Αδίοσας! (or however it might be spelled)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/trip-to-athens-prague/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn about 12 hours I\u0026rsquo;ll be taking the BART to SFO in order to fly to London, where I\u0026rsquo;ll meet my sister Rachel, who\u0026rsquo;s been doing a little backpacking around the UK. Together we\u0026rsquo;ll fly to Athens and spend about a week there. I\u0026rsquo;ve never been to Eastern Europe or the Mediterranean (apart from Barcelona), so I am very excited. Because we at Teleios (soon to be something else, hopefully) have been working furiously in preparation for the official launch of this website and more importantly our learning software, I haven\u0026rsquo;t had much time to focus on learning Greek, but I have been getting a minimal familiarity with the language. Ancient Greek doesn\u0026rsquo;t transfer super-well to understanding Modern, but it\u0026rsquo;s at least a good start, and I\u0026rsquo;ll certainly be able to read street signs for names.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Trip to Athens, Prague"},{"content":"῞Ωστε, ἀδελφοί μουἀγαπητοἴ, ἑδραῖοι γίνεσθε, ἀμετακίνητοι, περισσεύοντες ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ τοῦ κυρίουπάντοτε, εἰδότες ὅτι ὁ κόπος ὐμῶν οὐκ ἔστιν κενὸς ἐν κυρίῳ.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/a%C2%BC%C2%91i%C2%B4i%C2%81i%C2%B1a%C2%BF%C2%96i%C2%BFi%C2%82-i%C2%B5a%C2%BC%C2%B0i%C2%BCa%C2%BD%C2%B6/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e῞Ωστε, ἀδελφοί μου ἀγαπητοἴ, ἑδραῖοι γίνεσθε, ἀμετακίνητοι, περισσεύοντες ἐν τῷ ἔργῳ τοῦ κυρίου πάντοτε, εἰδότες ὅτι ὁ κόπος ὐμῶν οὐκ ἔστιν κενὸς ἐν κυρίῳ.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"ἑδραῖος εἰμὶ;"},{"content":"We had a sort of \u0026ldquo;dudes\u0026rsquo; retreat\u0026rdquo; last weekend (as staunchly opposed to a \u0026ldquo;men\u0026rsquo;s retreat\u0026rdquo;, of course), full of celebration and adventure (two words which aptly describe wandering around San Francisco on St Patrick\u0026rsquo;s Day) and much borderline-appropriate behavior. Most importantly though, we set aside a good bit of time to delve deeper into our artistic selves and lay bare our current souls via poetry and song. Needless to say, I was shocked and impressed at the quantity and quality of art that was produced, and the honest ways in which it was delivered. Various pieces from that time will probably float around the e4 weblogs soon enough.\nMy main contribution was a song I had written the day before the \u0026ldquo;retreat\u0026rdquo;, but I will save its lyrics for the time when I have a recording to go with it. I also wrote a short poem while on the top of Mt Tamalpais, north of San Francisco, where we had all gone hiking on Saturday. From Mt Tamalpais there is a glorious view of the SF bay, and this apparent division of the world into air and water, juxtaposed all about by land, inspired the poem, which I am calling \u0026ldquo;Tesseract\u0026rsquo;s End\u0026rdquo;:\nRugged shoulders to spines on back A strange animal I traverse Its own life an undefined breath Overlooked substratum of heaven on earth I walk sometimes up, sometimes in Phase shift accomodating forms that Disregard boundaries of texture-- Oh that my soul felt the same! To swim or run or fly between The lines that slice the diff\u0026#39;ring spheres A hardened wire of surface tension That feels, from altitude, as rock (on it I fall, and am crushed) To be of wing or fin was given To marvels of motion and muscle But lightspeed travel twixt high and low Alone can I exhibit --if only I could breathe at Tesseract\u0026#39;s end ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/tesseracts-end/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe had a sort of \u0026ldquo;dudes\u0026rsquo; retreat\u0026rdquo; last weekend (as staunchly opposed to a \u0026ldquo;men\u0026rsquo;s retreat\u0026rdquo;, of course), full of celebration and adventure (two words which aptly describe wandering around San Francisco on St Patrick\u0026rsquo;s Day) and much borderline-appropriate behavior. Most importantly though, we set aside a good bit of time to delve deeper into our artistic selves and lay bare our current souls via poetry and song. Needless to say, I was shocked and impressed at the quantity and quality of art that was produced, and the honest ways in which it was delivered. Various pieces from that time will probably float around the e4 weblogs soon enough.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Tesseract's End"},{"content":"The list of bloggable topics on my mind is currently very long, and (I am thinking) very good. Prominent on said list are (a) a long discourse on spiritual discipline and its effects, and (b) an explication of a home-brewed, possibly-heretical theology of creation that Nick and I have been kicking around for a little while and are pretty enchanted by, which seeks to resolve intuitions of a good pre-fall state with what evolutionary history says about nature being \u0026ldquo;red in tooth and claw\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;i.e., vicious and cruel\u0026ndash;long before humans arrived on the scene. However, something I saw last night on digg inspired me to push these topics yet further back, and that was a demo for an upcoming game by Maxis (creators of all the Sim games\u0026ndash;of which the early SimCity and SimCity 2000 were the most groundbreaking, in my opinion\u0026ndash;incidentally, you can play SimCity Classic online here if you have a PC).\nNow, I want to preface this whole entry with a bit of history, since to many of you it may come as a shock that for most of my life I have considered myself and been considered by others a \u0026ldquo;gamer\u0026rdquo;. If you want to skip the history and get to the point, scroll down to \u0026ldquo;The Reason for this Entry\u0026rdquo; below.\nA Personal Gaming History\nMy dad was into computers and hardware since I was a baby, so we always had a computer in the family. I think the first one was an Apple, but when we moved back to the States in 1988 from Papua New Guinea, our home computer became a PC with MS-DOS. Being a technically-minded youngster, my dad and I would spend hours together playing with hardware, installing hard drives and so forth\u0026ndash;and he taught me how to use DOS commands like \u0026ldquo;cd\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;dir\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;md\u0026rdquo;, and so on; he even taught me how to create .bat scripts! Later on I furthered my own education and learned how to write .com programs in assembly using \u0026ldquo;copy con\u0026rdquo;. Anyway, seeing that I took well to these sorts of things, my parents allowed me to play games on the computer, even though we had a no-Nintendo policy. Thus began a long love affair with PC gaming (and not, of course, console gaming).\nGames were like books to me\u0026ndash;little consumable pieces of fun that would transport me to different worlds, or allow me to be creative and imaginative, or give me a chance to learn more about computers (back in those days, things usually didn\u0026rsquo;t just \u0026ldquo;work\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;before running many games, you had to edit system startup files to allocate the correct amounts of memory to different parts of the system, or set IRQ settings for multimedia equipment because different games used different ports). I would get games usually via one of four ways. Occasionally my dad would bring home a game he\u0026rsquo;d borrowed from a friend (like Gunship 2000), or found overseas for cheap (like Prince of Persia). More often I would be messing around on one of the many Dallas-based BBSes, looking through the downloads section for shareware games to get and try out (incidentally, BBS culture and reminiscences are worth their own entry, but I probably won\u0026rsquo;t ever have the time to write such things out). Otherwise, I\u0026rsquo;d borrow and install games from my friends Nathan or Sean or Ben. This was before the days of cd-roms and copy protection, of course. Very occasionally, I\u0026rsquo;d spend what little money I had on a game.\nAnyway, I thought it\u0026rsquo;d be fun to make some lists for posterity\u0026rsquo;s sake, and also to underscore how much of a gamer I was in earlier years\u0026ndash;a world which is probably strange to most of you who spent your time at soccer practice or doing homework or whatever. If anyone wants to analyze the psychological implications of all of this, please do so in the comments. So here are lists of my favorite games:\nThe Elementary School era (1988 - 1991) During elementary school, we had a computer class every day which was supposed to teach us math or something, and if we finished our lessons early, we could go up to Mrs Mehta and ask for the 7.5\u0026quot; floppy of the game of our choice, which we could put into the Apple IIs and boot. I\u0026rsquo;d always play one of four games: Conan: Hall of Volta, Moon Patrol, Number Munchers, or of course, the mighty Oregon Trail.\nThe MS-DOS era (1988 - about 1996) The MS-DOS era overlaps quite a bit with both the Windows 3.1 and the Windows 95 era, since both of these operating systems were more or less pieces of software running on top of DOS, and so games created then were typically written for DOS. That\u0026rsquo;s why the era extends until 1996, even though I\u0026rsquo;d been using a graphical OS for quite some time. There are a lot of important games to list here, so I\u0026rsquo;ll do so by genre, and roughly chronologically within that.\nEducational games - the first games I played were educational games my parents had bought for the edification of myself and my siblings. For the most part, they didn\u0026rsquo;t teach me anything, but they were fun nonetheless and so I spent lots of time with them. For example: Reader Rabbit, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?, Math Rescue, and my favorite, Word Rescue.\nBoard games / Strategy games - I wasn\u0026rsquo;t as big a fan of this genre, but a few games did suck up my childhood time: Hexxagon, Battle Chess, The Incredible Machine, and the tank strategy Scorched Earth.\nSide-scrollers (top-down scrollers, too) - This was possibly the most popular style of game for this era, since it allowed for exciting action while avoiding the challenges of 3D. All were more or less awesome: Pharaoh\u0026rsquo;s Tomb, Secret Agent, Dark Ages, Jazz Jackrabbit, Commander Keen 4, Duke Nukem (the infamous), and Raptor: Call of the Shadows. By far the best of the lot was Prince of Persia. Unfortunately, my dad bought the game in Singapore and it came back without a manual. Many of this era\u0026rsquo;s games used words in the manual as keys to enter the game, to ensure that you had purchased it legally. Thus we could only play the game after successfully guessing the requested keyword (which happened about 1 in 50 times\u0026ndash;until we began writing them down).\nSims (space sims, plane sims, jet fighter sims, racing sims, worldbuilding sims) - We had flight sims like F-15 Strike Eagle, MS Flight Simulator 5, Jetfighter II (probably my favorite\u0026ndash;I distinctly remember flying at over Mach 1 underneath the Bay and Golden Gate bridges\u0026hellip;and then turning south to fly for over an hour down to the LA coast\u0026ndash;where there were only 1-color land/sea bitmaps), ATF, Gunship 2000 (the best helicopter sim ever), [Falcon 3.0](http://www.mobygames.com/game/lhx-attack-chopper\u0026gt;LHX: Attack Chopper, and \u0026lt;a href=). We also had space sims like Wing Commander, Wing Commander II, Descent (and Descent 2), Star Wars: X-Wing (the first time I ventured into the Star Wars gaming universe, which has provided endless entertainment since then), Star Wars: Tie Fighter (the best sim experience I\u0026rsquo;ve ever had), and Terminal Velocity. Notable racing sims included one of my all-time favorites, Stunts, which let you design your own racetrack with jumps, loops, corkscrews. Definitely a plus\u0026ndash;and you could even record yourself driving on the tracks and replay them later. Also: SkyRoads. The lone sub sim I played was Silent Hunter. There were two cool mech sims I liked: Ultrabots and Mechwarrior 2. Finally, I already mentioned Sim City and Sim City 2000.\nRole-playing games - unlike the MMORPGs of today, the MS-DOS era\u0026rsquo;s role-playing games were single-person adventures where you typically had to use your brain to figure out puzzles and guide a character through an adventure. My favorite experience in this genre was undoubtedly King\u0026rsquo;s Quest V, which my friend Nathan and I agonized over together for quite a long time. The most technically wowing game was Return to Zork, which was a first-person adventure utilizing the newly-released cd-rom drives to deliver actual video content as part of the game. Other memorable games included: The Secret of Monkey Island (Guybrush Threepwood is my hero!), King\u0026rsquo;s Quest VI, Space Quest IV, The Adventures of Willy Beamish, the extremely original, genre-bending It Came from the Desert!, and Solar Winds.\nFirst-person shooters - A fledgling genre, but later to become my favorite, more or less. I played Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom (but only at my friend Michael\u0026rsquo;s house, since my parents would have banned it).\nOther - I used to play one fighting game with my brother: One Must Fall: 2097. Also there was the excellent Nibbles, run as \u0026ldquo;qbasic nibbles.bas\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; I had tons of fun looking at the source code for that one when I was beginning to write my own BASIC programs. Also, this doesn\u0026rsquo;t count as a DOS game, because it was for the early Macs, but I was absolutely addicted to Bolo in junior high, primarily because it was multiplayer! Also, another fun sim-like game was Coaster, which let you have very fine-control design over coasters, and then ride them, monitoring g-forces, rider experience, etc\u0026hellip;\nThe high school era (1997-2000) Sometime before high school, I discovered Star Wars: Dark Forces - the Star Wars FPS that would spawn the series I\u0026rsquo;ve completed the most games from. I probably spent more time playing Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight during freshman year of high school than any other game. In multiplayer (by then the internet had become useful for playing games), I was literally unstoppable if I had the rocket launcher. The subsequent games, Jedi Knight II: Outcast, and Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy were equally fun, with somewhat more of an arcade feel.\nBut back to high school: Quake and Quake II initiated the era, but soon I discovered a new genre that would prove to be the one that I thought would be my favorite (but in fact wasn\u0026rsquo;t): the real-time strategy. First there was Command and Conquer, and its flow of unit creation / control / combat was intriguing. I didn\u0026rsquo;t get very far in the game, though, before I became bored. Later that year, I traded C\u0026amp;C with my friend for Warcraft II, which turned out to be a much more important game in my gaming history. It was the first time I\u0026rsquo;d heard of Blizzard, but I loved the way they\u0026rsquo;d set up the game much more than C\u0026amp;C, because it was fantasy-based as opposed to modern. What really got me, however, was the story\u0026ndash;Warcraft II came with a manual which had a short book included, telling the story of the game world. The depth of that story, and the clever way it was integrated into the game itself, hooked me a lot more than the actual mechanics of the game, which were good, but which wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have hooked me otherwise. I had such a fun experience with WC2 that I went back and bought the original Warcraft as well, which was laughably worse, but still fun. Anyway, Warcraft II was impactful in that it caused me to spend hours and hours on the forums for Blizzard\u0026rsquo;s upcoming RTS Starcraft, discussing all aspects of the game for almost a year before it was released. As it happened, I was way more into the game before it came out, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t finish any of the campaigns.\nWhile I was waiting for Starcraft, I enjoyed several other strategy games: Riven, Myth: The Fallen Lords (which had the most awesome 3D RTS engine to date\u0026ndash;it actually let you move the camera around!), Age of Empires, and a family favorite, Lords of the Realm II.\nDuring and after the move to Florida in 1999, I played Battlezone, The Wheel of Time (an excellent, very much under-appreciated game based on the Robert Jordan book series), Total Annihilation, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms (an unfairly-lampooned RTS with a very original story line), Age of Empires II (a vast improvement over the original), Thief: The Dark Project (an extremely original first-person sneaker), and most importantly, I finally got around to playing through Half-Life, which was without doubt the best game of its time. The summer before Stanford I also attempted to tackle the new breed of adventure/role-playing games by taking on Ultima IX: Ascension, but it proved to be too much of a time sink (a lesson I apparently didn\u0026rsquo;t learn, given that I later played both Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and World of Warcraft (which readers will remember).\nCollege to Current (2000 - 2006) College was mostly a sad time for my gaming habits, as other parts of my life were fleshed out and took precedence, including but not limited to the newfound athleticism I was cultivating partly to fit in to the more-active Stanford crowd, and partly because it just felt right and healthy. Of course, freshman year would give the lie to that statement, as I would game with my roommate Eric or my whole floor to all hours of the night, playing Counter-Strike. But games were definitely on the downswing as a whole\u0026hellip;while I continued to buy games I thought I would like with my bits of disposable income, I rarely had time to finish them. One notable exception (other than the Jedi Knight games), was Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which was the most scary first-person shooter I\u0026rsquo;d played to date. I would play it with the lights off for a while, but occasionally I\u0026rsquo;d have to jump out of my chair and run down the hall to get rid of the goosebumps. Needless to say, it was excellent. One summer, I was accepted as a beta tester for the now sadly defunct Savage, a boldly-conceptualized hybrid of FPS and RTS. It was fun to see a game change while I was playing it.\nSince I was a Blizzard fan, I also picked up Warcraft III on the day it was released, and finished it over the next couple of years (though I\u0026rsquo;m still not done with The Frozen Throne. Since college, I\u0026rsquo;ve really only played two games: the extremely awesome Half-Life 2, which is probably the best FPS game ever, and the ubiquitous World of Warcraft. Oh wait, I did finish Halo for mac, as well.\nAnyway, so much for my personal gaming history. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what principles we can draw from this, but I will say that most of my best gaming experiences have been ones that have involved other people in some way\u0026ndash;I can remember hours of pure, awesome fun playing games with my brother over the LAN, or with my friends. I also formed some friendships online through gaming that, while not particularly long-lasting, were not meaningless. (This would be harder to now, given that most people who play games on the internet are about 10 years of age, or have that mentality).\nEssentially, being in communities formed around gaming has made that gaming more meaningful than it otherwise would have been. Which is not to say that these are good or helpful communities, but more the general observation that doing things with people makes you like the things themselves more. That\u0026rsquo;s why some people have positive connotations of consuming alcohol or tobacco, where others don\u0026rsquo;t.\nThe Reason for this Entry Now that it is clear exactly what kind of nerd I am, I wanted to share news of an exciting game that is in the works. It\u0026rsquo;s called Spore, and it\u0026rsquo;s being designed by Will Wright, the same guy who designed the SimCity and Sims games. As the Wikipedia article says, he generally designs \u0026ldquo;software toys\u0026rdquo; rather than goal-oriented games\u0026ndash;essentially, things that you can play with and do what you will with for an indefinite period of time\u0026ndash;there is no set beginning or end. Think about SimCity\u0026ndash;you could spend your whole life building and running it if you wanted; there is no endpoint, only your own creativity and tolerance. You can watch a video of a talk by Wright at last year\u0026rsquo;s Game Developers Conference, where he says a lot of interesting things about game design. In the middle of the talk he gives a demo of this upcoming game Spore which is possibly the most amazing piece of interactive software I have seen. If you don\u0026rsquo;t want to wade through the talk, you can go straight to the gameplay video.\nBasically, the game is a world sim of the most epic proportions. You start out controlling a microorganism, and through eating and modifying the organism through various generations of existence using the game\u0026rsquo;s editor, you propel your creature-line through various stages of evolution: bacteria, small macroorganism, fish-type thing, amphibious walking creature, etc\u0026hellip;\nThe micro stage\nAt a certain point your creature becomes sentient and the game changes\u0026ndash;you\u0026rsquo;re now controlling a society, which you grow in ways familiar to Civ players. Other asynchronously-user-designed societies exist on your world with which you interact in friendly or hostile manners depending on how you have been training your creatures. At this stage you use the same world editor to \u0026ldquo;buy\u0026rdquo; and/or create from scratch various buildings and technologies, which enable creation of vehicles, colonizations, and other possibilities.\nThe city (\u0026ldquo;civ\u0026rdquo;) stage\nEventually, assuming all the previous stages have been successful, you gain off-world transportation power and are able to travel to other planets in the solar system, using terraforming techniques to make them habitable.\nView of your planet\nWith the resources gathered by all your civilizations, interstellar travel becomes possible, and using SETI-like mini-games, discovery of other sentient beings throughout the galaxy becomes only a matter of time. These sentient beings have been designed by other players\u0026ndash;though they are copied from a central database and your actions with them do not affect that player\u0026rsquo;s world. Anyway, peaceful or warlike negotiations are possible here just in the same way as on your home planet, and thusly you can explore the galaxy. And finally, it is even possible to zoom out from the galaxy and fly around at the most macro-scale imaginable, swooshing past countless similar galaxies, each with their own star systems and habitable worlds, populated with procedurally-generated or other-user-generated content.\nWhile the game itself looks like it will probably be the most fun game ever released, the way it has been conceptualized/designed is fascinating and inspiring to me. First, the game is basically an analogue to the Powers of 10 phenomenon which is so breathtaking\u0026ndash;only you\u0026rsquo;re zooming out instead of in. Second, the game behavior actually changes at each step backwards. In other words, you don\u0026rsquo;t have one game with one set of game mechanics that you play until completion\u0026ndash;no, the rules, methods, and goals of the game change depending on what level of detail you are at in your universal evolution. This promises to provide a completely different gameplay experience than most games, which are somewhat statically designed. Third, everything in the game is procedural or algorithmic, which completely fascinates me. Wright explains at the beginning of his talk how in the early 90s the exponential increase in data storage capacities (via the cd-rom) made game designers think almost exclusively in terms of massive content creation, because they now could, instead of thinking in terms of dynamically generating content based on smart and compact algorithms. This part of the game blows my mind\u0026ndash;every creature, every building is customizable in thousands of ways, but the software knows how to treat everything so that it works exactly how it\u0026rsquo;s supposed to in the world.\nIn the gameplay video, Wright shows off some of the variety you can have in the creature editor, and he made a creature with three legs. We don\u0026rsquo;t really have any of these on Earth, so in my mind I didn\u0026rsquo;t even have a good idea of what a three-legged creature should walk and move like. But the game\u0026rsquo;s engine analyzed the skeleton of the tripod animal and decided that it would have to walk in a certain way, and it looks completely real. The amount of physics research that must have been done to produce such an engine is incredible.\nAnother inspiring design point Wright made was that, in their research into gameplay patterns, people are almost always happier when they are given tools with which to be creative regarding content. That content might not be as good as content designed by professionals, but given that it belongs to me, I am more invested in it and therefore feel that I am having a more meaningful entertainment experience. I resonate deeply with this mode of thinking, and feel that it might be the thing that saves electronic entertainment from being completely useless. Fundamentally, entertainment needs to be recreation (see weblog title!), by which I mean re-creation, or creating-after. Games that facilitate this creativity will be much more beneficial for people than hack-and-slashers or for most of the crap that Hollywood spews out (the same principle holds true for other forms of media, even if it\u0026rsquo;s less fundamentally interactive\u0026ndash;good films are the ones that require you to creatively generate something in order to correctly experience or understand it\u0026ndash;whether that creativity is in the intellectual or emotional sphere). So this is the tie-in to the personal gaming history, because I\u0026rsquo;m wondering if Spore might have some ability to re-deem and re-integrate gaming into a well-rounded and well-recreated life.\nMoving on to another theme: as someone who essentially designs interfaces for a living (but who is beginning to realize this is neither always nor typically enjoyable), the way the interfaces are designed in Spore is dazzling. Everything is simple, clean, and organic. What is necessary is at hand, and what is not is hidden away. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if this good design was easy given the organic nature of the game itself, but regardless, someone is doing something right, and I am excited to get my hands on a copy just to see how they solve all the UI problems that must exist in a game with as large a scope as this one. (Incidentally, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t find a release date anywhere\u0026hellip;hopefully 2006 sometime!)\nLastly, given recent thoughts about evolution, in biological, sociological, cosmological, and theological terms, the bare premise of the game is philosophically interesting. I want to see how the story of evolution is told, what explanations are given, and so forth. I mean, what we have here is basically a model of \u0026ldquo;theistic\u0026rdquo; (rather, \u0026ldquo;guided\u0026rdquo;) evolution, where the player is actually making cognitive decisions for how to affect the physical or cultural aspects of a creature or society. Given that this is an interesting model in general, I really want to play around with it and see how deep the \u0026ldquo;procedurality\u0026rdquo; of the game goes, and how much of it is hard-coded AI.\nIf anyone has made it this far: what do you think? Did you watch either of the videos? Why am I so excited about this? Is it just my Five-wing expressing itself?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/inspiration-from-game-design/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe list of bloggable topics on my mind is currently very long, and (I am thinking) very good. Prominent on said list are (a) a long discourse on spiritual discipline and its effects, and (b) an explication of a home-brewed, possibly-heretical theology of creation that Nick and I have been kicking around for a little while and are pretty enchanted by, which seeks to resolve intuitions of a good pre-fall state with what evolutionary history says about nature being \u0026ldquo;red in tooth and claw\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;i.e., vicious and cruel\u0026ndash;long before humans arrived on the scene. However, something I saw last night on \u003ca href=\"http://digg.com\"\u003edigg\u003c/a\u003e inspired me to push these topics yet further back, and that was a demo for an upcoming game by \u003ca href=\"http://www.maxis.com/\"\u003eMaxis\u003c/a\u003e (creators of all the Sim games\u0026ndash;of which the early SimCity and SimCity 2000 were the most groundbreaking, in my opinion\u0026ndash;incidentally, you can play SimCity Classic online \u003ca href=\"http://simcity.ea.com/play/classic/index.html\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e if you have a PC).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow, I want to preface this whole entry with a bit of history, since to many of you it may come as a shock that for most of my life I have considered myself and been considered by others a \u0026ldquo;gamer\u0026rdquo;. If you want to skip the history and get to the point, scroll down to \u0026ldquo;The Reason for this Entry\u0026rdquo; below.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Inspiration from Game Design"},{"content":"I finally put some pictures online from my trip to the Bahamas to hang out with my friends Nate and Laura. You can look at them here.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/bahamas-photos/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI finally put some pictures online from my trip to the Bahamas to hang out with my friends Nate and Laura. You can look at them \u003ca href=\"http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/18266.7be6c09680f\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://image8.bubbleshare.com/media/00/04/a3/ff/ebf5ffce9f4936e8ec86fbc516c2e10c/580x435/IMG-3129_580x435.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Bahamas Photos"},{"content":"Last night at community dinner, we did an exercise which was meant to replace/augment the normal process of sharing with one another how each of us is doing, what we are thinking about, how we are feeling, etc. Usually we\u0026rsquo;d just go around in a circle and have each person contribute whatever she feels like about herself, but last night we decided the contribution needed to be slightly more formal: we each took roughly 45 minutes alone with pen and paper, and wrote, either in poetry, prose, or a mix, the answer to the questions \u0026ldquo;where are you?\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;how are you doing?\u0026rdquo;, and \u0026ldquo;what are you feeling?\u0026rdquo;.\nThe idea was to imbue some more constrained object (a few paragraphs of prose, or a haiku, or a rant) with a more focused, albeit artistic, answer, with the hope that this presence would be actually a more meaningful way to share than just saying verbally whatever would have come to mind. Indeed, I was very surprised at the level of depth I felt we were able to achieve, seeing as we were working with a significant economy of words; in fact, when we came back together and read what we had written, we had enough time to go around twice, in order to further understand people.\nHopefully at least a few of us will post what we wrote on our weblogs here\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;m going to start with my work of the evening, entitled The Amnesiac Shipbuilder. It\u0026rsquo;s a story.\nLand, that once felt safe and so sweet Now a detestable spit of sand What gave life and surety to feet I\u0026#39;d banish if I thought it would heed a command Water to drink is no good if it keeps Life alive but alone, incomplete Fruit follows suit, it belongs in the deeps If health is all that there is in this heat I have in the wreckage a thousand tomes Whose wisdom\u0026#39;s satisfied a thousand men But my adventure lies not at home-- Useful a shipbuilding book would have been! Resignation is my lover at night With whom I wrestle sensuously But her charms are not even close to delight And in daylight, I spurn her contemptuously Laziness would no doubt have been my bane If I thought effort could affect But helplessness never gave one gain Unless him for rescue did God (or fate) select Either one would be fine. ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/the-amnesiac-shipbuilder/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast night at community dinner, we did an exercise which was meant to replace/augment the normal process of sharing with one another how each of us is doing, what we are thinking about, how we are feeling, etc. Usually we\u0026rsquo;d just go around in a circle and have each person contribute whatever she feels like about herself, but last night we decided the contribution needed to be slightly more formal: we each took roughly 45 minutes alone with pen and paper, and wrote, either in poetry, prose, or a mix, the answer to the questions \u0026ldquo;where are you?\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;how are you doing?\u0026rdquo;, and \u0026ldquo;what are you feeling?\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Amnesiac Shipbuilder"},{"content":"After looking at Friday\u0026rsquo;s forecast for new snow in Lake Tahoe, my friends Kyle and Dan convinced me to leave at 5am on Friday to get in a good day of skiing/snowboarding at Kirkwood before driving back that evening. It was a good plan, and we were confident that it would lead to a full day of great snowboarding conditions with relatively few people on the slopes. Unfortunately, Nature had several other ideas for how we were to spend our time.\nWe left reasonably close to the 5am goal and made record time to the central valley, but after making our way up into the hills, things got interesting: a regular blizzard was in session, and the roads were soon quite treacherous after the snow was compacted by tires in the sub-freezing temperatures. At one point we were stopped on a slight incline behind traffic, and when it was time to go, the Civic refused to move forward\u0026ndash;traction had disappeared. Luckily, the car behind us happened to be a police officer and so he held traffic while I mustered all my clutch ability and eased into first gear and then to the side of the road where we put chains on the tires for the rest of the climb.\nIt soon became apparent, as the snow kept piling up, that we were going to have serious problems, and it was indeed so: the pass to Kirkwood was closed for avalanche control, and so we were out of luck. Determined to get on some mountain, we went all the way back down and took another road, intending to find Bear Valley, a lesser resort. The pass was not quite as high on that road, so there was a good chance it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be closed, and it wasn\u0026rsquo;t!\nOf course, though open, the road was still dangerous and the going was slow. Even with chains, the car would slide and fishtail with anything but minor changes in velocity or minor turns of the wheel, making it exhausting to drive many miles at such a slow pace. Eventually, though, we made it through the whiteout (parts of which were so white that it was impossible to make out where the road was and where the snowbanks to the sides of it were) and to Bear Valley, where we were able to get 2 hours of snowboarding in before the slopes closed.\nI was exhausted from 7+ hours of driving, and I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been on a board since 2004, so I had quite a few amazing spills\u0026ndash;none of which were very dangerous, given the multiple feet of fresh powder there to break my fall! So we had a crazy fun time careening down the mountain and trying to make the most of our short time. Here you can see the snow that accumulated on my car after just that short time (and this was just the residual, post-storm effect):\nAnother 5 hours of driving (not including the horrendous chain installation/removal events which definitely tried our collective patience), and we were back\u0026ndash;a very long, very intense, not-too-snowboarding-filled day! But you have to love these little adventures.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/adventures-in-driving-to-tahoe/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter looking at Friday\u0026rsquo;s forecast for new snow in Lake Tahoe, my friends Kyle and Dan convinced me to leave at 5am on Friday to get in a good day of skiing/snowboarding at Kirkwood before driving back that evening. It was a good plan, and we were confident that it would lead to a full day of great snowboarding conditions with relatively few people on the slopes. Unfortunately, Nature had several other ideas for how we were to spend our time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Adventures in Driving to Tahoe"},{"content":"Some people I know have world records in sports, and what have you, but I have just today earned the assuredly-awesome distinction of being the first Standpoint user to reach 1000 beliefs. What is Standpoint? Standpoint is an online community started by my friends Justin and Gentry, which I\u0026rsquo;ve been having a lot of fun with recently, and have been able to help along in some small ways.\nBasically, Standpoint is an online community organized around formulations of, and reasons given for, beliefs. The basic unit of Standpoint is a \u0026ldquo;claim\u0026rdquo;, or a proposition, towards which you can take a few attitudes, including belief, consideration, or \u0026ldquo;disbelief\u0026rdquo; (which is more complicated). You can create your own claims, believe ones others created, disagree with people, and in general try to have discussions using very short, disjointed, and atomic sentences. At least that\u0026rsquo;s the idea\u0026ndash;in practice, people aren\u0026rsquo;t very good at keeping things short, atomic, or well-formed, so it gets interesting (and at times frustrating to the logician-philosopher inside me).\nAnyway, I thought that making it to 1000 beliefs was a fun landmark in the short existence of Standpoint\u0026ndash;if you want to check my profile out, go to jlipps.standpoint.com. Please do sign up, play around, add your beliefs and reasons, ask to be my friend, etc! Some new features should also be rolling out soon that will greatly enhance the Standpoint experience.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/03/new-world-record/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSome people I know have world records in sports, and what have you, but I have just today earned the assuredly-awesome distinction of being the first Standpoint user to reach 1000 beliefs. What is Standpoint? \u003ca href=\"http://www.standpoint.com\"\u003eStandpoint\u003c/a\u003e is an online community started by my friends \u003ca href=\"http://just.in\"\u003eJustin\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"http://blog.gentry.io\"\u003eGentry\u003c/a\u003e, which I\u0026rsquo;ve been having a lot of fun with recently, and have been able to help along in some small ways.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBasically, Standpoint is an online community organized around formulations of, and reasons given for, beliefs. The basic unit of Standpoint is a \u0026ldquo;claim\u0026rdquo;, or a proposition, towards which you can take a few attitudes, including belief, consideration, or \u0026ldquo;disbelief\u0026rdquo; (which is more complicated). You can create your own claims, believe ones others created, disagree with people, and in general try to have discussions using very short, disjointed, and atomic sentences. At least that\u0026rsquo;s the idea\u0026ndash;in practice, people aren\u0026rsquo;t very good at keeping things short, atomic, or well-formed, so it gets interesting (and at times frustrating to the logician-philosopher inside me).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"New World Record"},{"content":"Since it\u0026rsquo;s the title of this weblog, one might guess that I am good at (or otherwise enjoy) recreation. However, I\u0026rsquo;m experiencing some problems with it. I\u0026rsquo;ve just returned from a community dinner up on Skyline (where it snowed briefly for the first time in my six years in this part of the Bay Area!), and have a few hours to spend doing something. My problem is, there are a lot of options. Here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about doing so far:\nRead Reality by McGrath Work on a song / play guitar Play Half-Life 2 on my newly reconstructed PC Go next door and watch the Olympics Watch a movie Sleep early Clean up / organize my bedroom Work on my constructed language Enaselvai Keep working on my modern Greek lessons (in preparation for trip to Athens) Write overdue e-mails Taxes Put my new budget into Quicken Drink alcohol Get my old reconstruction of English letters out and re-learn it so I can write in \u0026ldquo;code\u0026rdquo; again Write a weblog entry on the relationship between physical and spiritual training Test the current e4 client Get my piano (keyboard) out and play beautiful droning melodies until I am lulled to sleep Listen to the new Paste sampler \u0026hellip;and I could keep going. You can see I have literally dozens of options. Unfortunately, I\u0026rsquo;ve sat here in front of my computer for over 30 minutes just thinking about what to do\u0026ndash;and so drain the sands from the hourglass of opportunity. All of these possibilities range from work-related to completely fun/useless, from productive to escapist, but I\u0026rsquo;m finding it impossible to settle on one thing. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s the pain of not being able to do others that keeps me from doing one? I\u0026rsquo;m not sure. Anyway, I thought that while I was sitting here experiencing that pain I might as well chronicle it, so that the absurdity will be made known to the world.\nWell, it looks like salvation has come in the form of a phone call\u0026ndash;turns out ski jumping is on the Olympics now, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been saying all week how I want to watch it, so my choice has been made. But we can make this entry fun yet\u0026ndash;out of the list of options I listed, which one would you have picked? Don\u0026rsquo;t be shy now!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/02/recreation-is-difficult/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSince it\u0026rsquo;s the title of this weblog, one might guess that I am good at (or otherwise enjoy) recreation. However, I\u0026rsquo;m experiencing some problems with it. I\u0026rsquo;ve just returned from a community dinner up on Skyline (where it snowed briefly for the first time in my six years in this part of the Bay Area!), and have a few hours to spend doing something. My problem is, there are a lot of options. Here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve thought about doing so far:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Recreation is Difficult"},{"content":"Some random experiences from a few days in the Bahamas (from which I am now in the process of returning) spawned this poem, which spilled edit-free from my pen yesterday:\nShapes in clear water when moving are blurred and the fuzz provides fear For unknown says death\u0026#39;s always seeking and will in the end become near So sun and life soon are forgotten if only for a space of seconds Heart and mind illusion-smitten propel the soul back to the sands From the shore heartbeats are slower Embarrassment looks like the heat of the day The water is clear, it seems fear need not tower O\u0026#39;er a reckless rejoining the fray But horizon reveals, dark symbols appear Omens or fins? both blacker than sky Recklessness checked, the imagined is here It seems a more rational soul would have died ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/02/life-in-the-ocean/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSome random experiences from a few days in the Bahamas (from which I am now in the process of returning) spawned this poem, which spilled edit-free from my pen yesterday:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"highlight\"\u003e\u003cpre tabindex=\"0\" style=\"color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4;-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;\"\u003e\u003ccode class=\"language-fallback\" data-lang=\"fallback\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShapes in clear water when moving\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eare blurred and the fuzz provides fear\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor unknown says death\u0026#39;s always seeking\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand will in the end become near\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSo sun and life soon are forgotten\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eif only for a space of seconds\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHeart and mind illusion-smitten\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003epropel the soul back to the sands\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the shore heartbeats are slower\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEmbarrassment looks like the heat of the day\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe water is clear, it seems fear need not tower\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eO\u0026#39;er a reckless rejoining the fray\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut horizon reveals, dark symbols appear\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOmens or fins? both blacker than sky\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRecklessness checked, the imagined is here\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"display:flex;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt seems a more rational soul would have died\n\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/pre\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Life in the Ocean"},{"content":"This week, I am in the Bahamas. My friend Nathan Akers is randomly an extra in the next two Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and has a hotel room in Freeport for a while. I decided there needed to be availing of (a) Nathan\u0026rsquo;s company, (b) Nathan\u0026rsquo;s hotel room, and (c) Nathan\u0026rsquo;s hotel\u0026rsquo;s free wireless, and so here I am. No idea what will happen, but so far the company is fun and the drinks are provided by someone else! Cheers.\nThe view from the hot tub (\u0026hellip;of another hotel)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/02/on-assignment/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis week, I am in the Bahamas. My friend \u003ca href=\"http://www.nathanakers.net\"\u003eNathan Akers\u003c/a\u003e is randomly an extra in the next two \u003ca href=\"http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/piratesofcaribbean2/\"\u003ePirates of the Caribbean\u003c/a\u003e movies, and has a hotel room in Freeport for a while. I decided there needed to be availing of (a) Nathan\u0026rsquo;s company, (b) Nathan\u0026rsquo;s hotel room, and (c) Nathan\u0026rsquo;s hotel\u0026rsquo;s free wireless, and so here I am. No idea what will happen, but so far the company is fun and the drinks are provided by someone else! Cheers.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"\"On Assignment\""},{"content":"Once upon a time, there was a king who lived in a castle in the mountains. The king loved his castle more than anything else in the world, and all the people who lived there took pride in it as well. Not only did it provide protection against enemies and a sense of shared identity for those within its walls, it was quite possibly the most majestic castle ever constructed. On a clear day, the sight of the castle\u0026rsquo;s sparkling, sun-dazzled walls and its boldly colored turrets was wonderful to behold, and the sound of its many pennants snapping joyfully in the brisk wind was prone to making people\u0026rsquo;s hearts beat faster. The king loved his castle for all of these reasons, but more still because its splendor was such a far cry from the squalor of the mountain village he had inherited. The king and his people had been an unimportant and crude tribe not so long ago, but through his rule and because of his wisdom, a beautiful castle with bustling markets and many artisans was his people\u0026rsquo;s legacy.\nOne autumn, there was a terrific earthquake that shook the roots of the mountains of the king. The foundations of his castle were strong, and sunk deep into the earth, but that only put them closer to the impossible forces that were rising from deep underground. The inhabitants of the castle stayed in their homes, frightened, until very gradually the stones of the castle\u0026rsquo;s wall, and the high graceful arches that spanned tower to tower, began to crack and fall. Then, chaos and panic drove everyone out of the town with whatever they could carry, and higher into the mountains where nothing could fall on them.\nThough his people had fled, the king stayed in the great hall of the keep, sitting in shock on his throne. He could not bear to think about the destruction that was happening around him, to his beautiful castle. In his mind, he resolved himself to stay where he was until some falling stone crushed him and ended the horror that was brought upon him as his most treasured object was dying. Fortunately, the king had a wise steward who had not only helped to organize the disorderly flight of the people, thereby saving many lives, but who knew the king would need persuading to leave. Patiently but insistently, the steward convinced the king that he owed more to his subjects than to the town he had constructed for them, and so the king allowed himself to be led out of the great hall, out of the keep, and out of the high walls.\nOnce the earthquakes had subsided, unfavorable terrain, lack of food, and roving bands of wolves drove the king and his people away from the ruins of the castle. It was weeks until the king returned to survey the damage. In truth, very little remained. A few towers stood, looking cracked and forlorn, lonely when once they had companions. The inner parts of the castle were for the most part one large heap of rubble, though a ghostly skeleton of the great hall remained. The king felt that this was worse than if everything had been flat on the ground, for the hint of structure mocked him, reminded him of the glory that once existed in and around it.\nThe king sank to his knees on the ground and silently mourned the loss of his life\u0026rsquo;s work. Then those who were with him saw a change occur\u0026ndash;the king clenched his fists and shook with what appeared to be anger. Immediately the king strode to the nearest pile of debris and pulled out some of the remains of a stone wall, throwing them wildly away from the old perimeter of the castle. His companions asked what he was doing, and his only reply was to order that every man, woman, and child be engaged thenceforth in the dismantling of all that remained of the castle, the pieces of which were to be scattered around the whole country, so that nothing whatsoever of the castle remained to mark the spot where it had once stood proudly.\nWith great sadness, the former inhabitants of the castle turned to do the king\u0026rsquo;s bidding, and to erase the memory of a place where they had spent so many happy years. But the king\u0026rsquo;s steward, seeing that the king was acting out of anger, sought to dissuade him from his plan. He reminded the king that it was now nearing winter, that they had no means to recover their storehouses of food, which had been spoiled, that they were ill-equipped for the cold, and that in order to survive they would need to abandon the mountain\u0026rsquo;s heights and take refuge with their country\u0026rsquo;s lowland neighbors, who had had good harvests. Once again it was only his obligation to the people he ruled that convinced the king, and so even though he hated now the very sight of the poor castle that had once been his greatest accomplishment, he relented and led his people down the mountain, where they passed the winter in the generous hospitality of those who lived there.\nWhen spring came, the folk of the high mountain castle were loath to leave the friendly lands where they had wintered. Not only were they eager to help with the crops and livestock of their benefactors in order to show their significant gratitude, but they had become friends with their neighbors and had grown to love the milder environment, where meadows and ponds were in somewhat more plenty. Indeed, some of the newcomers had even intermarried with their hosts, and so had no trouble at all forgetting the magnificent castle when an equally magnificent and peaceful life looked open to them where they were. Since such was the heart of his people, and given the insistence of his friend (the king of lowland people) that he remain, the king and his subjects spent several years living and working as guests, though as the time went on, they felt less like guests and more integrated into the life and culture of their new country.\nThe mountain king, for the most part, did not think about his loss. As an expert architect, he was always helping the lowland king with a bridge or windmill or grain house, and of course he attended to all the typical kingly duties, which were made no fewer without having an official throne. On some of the colder nights, however, his steward would see the king staring up at the mountains to their north as the sun set between two peaks\u0026ndash;the same two peaks that the king\u0026rsquo;s former castle was nestled between. The steward also noticed that the king never replicated the angry visage he had shown on the first day of their descent to the lowlands, except when the lowland king mentioned the mountain king\u0026rsquo;s castle. This happened infrequently, though it was obvious that the lowland king had admired the mountain king\u0026rsquo;s castle, and hoped that now that he was a guest in the lowland king\u0026rsquo;s lands, he might help the lowland king with a construction of a castle of his own. But the mountain king, in these instances, kept his jaw so tight and his tone so non-committal that the lowland king soon learned there was no use in asking.\nWhen a few springs had passed, there was word that some barbarian tribes had made allegiance and descended from the north, threatening the scattered homesteads and villages in the lands surrounding the mountain king\u0026rsquo;s former domain. These homesteads had not been affected seriously by the earthquake and had decided to remain where they were, despite the migration south by the king and his people, and were now paying the cost of the lack of protection of a nearby monarch. Neither the mountain king nor the lowland king could bear the thought of such innocents being ravaged, so they agreed to spend the latter portion of winter in battle against the barbarians, which, with their combined forces, they would surely win.\nDuring one of the northern marches of said battle, the mountain king realized they were near to the spot were his castle had been, and since they were not on a particularly pressing campaign, he was able to take a small band, including his faithful and wise steward, to the spot where the shakings of the earth had leveled his beloved town. He approached the ruins expecting to feel the same burst of anger that he had felt on those nights in the lowlands when he chanced to look up at the mountains, but instead, when they arrived at the place, he was shocked into silence by the change that had been wrought there. Instead of the harsh crumble of stone, the king saw a gentle carpet of green moss over all the castle. It was a sad moss, and spoke of lost glory and beautiful days that would be no more\u0026ndash;but if softened the scene and left the king feeling wistful, rather than angry. As the king moved across the nature-strewn rubble, he saw something even more powerful\u0026ndash;a tiny fir had taken root in the very center of the remains of the great hall, and was having, on all appearances, a grand summer. Such new life and potential majesty caused the king to forget his thoughts of hatred towards the castle, and made him ponder the flow of time, of nature and its inexorable drive to live.\nThe king stood by the fir sapling and realized that he owed very much to his wise steward, for he knew all of a sudden that the correct response to such destruction and loss as he had experienced was not to eradicate everything which reminded him of such loss\u0026ndash;no! The king realized in that moment that memories of great things, even though they might be destroyed, were worth keeping, for great things are worth remembering, even if they were thought to be greater than they were. The king laid his palm against the fir tree, and begrudged it not that it stood where his throne had sat, because he saw that such a place as the one around him was as perfect for firs as for kings and castles.\nThen, the king thanked the wise steward and promised him that he and his line would inherit the throne (for the king was childless), since it was because of the steward that the king and his people had survived the great earthquake, and seen the beauty that nature had wrought over a scene of such destruction. It was not that nature made it so that the destruction never occurred\u0026ndash;instead, between the time and the trees, the king had realized that the ghosts of his past were not to be annihilated, but to be treasured and viewed in a particular way\u0026ndash;the way of the present. So the king descended from the mountain to his people, victorious in the battle against the barbarians, but more importantly, healed from his anger against the castle, and fully ready to give his life to the people, even if the houses of the lowland king were not as grand.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/02/the-king-and-his-castle-a-parable/","summary":"Once upon a time, there was a king who lived in a castle in the mountains. The king loved his castle more than anything else in the world, and all the people who lived there took pride in it as well. Not only did it provide protection against enemies and a sense of shared identity for those within its walls, it was quite possibly the most majestic castle ever constructed. On a clear day, the sight of the castle\u0026rsquo;s sparkling, sun-dazzled walls and its boldly colored turrets was wonderful to behold, and the sound of its many pennants snapping joyfully in the brisk wind was prone to making people\u0026rsquo;s hearts beat faster. The king loved his castle for all of these reasons, but more still because its splendor was such a far cry from the squalor of the mountain village he had inherited. The king and his people had been an unimportant and crude tribe not so long ago, but through his rule and because of his wisdom, a beautiful castle with bustling markets and many artisans was his people\u0026rsquo;s legacy.","title":"The King And His Castle (A Parable)"},{"content":"For the last three nights, I stayed up till an average hour of 5am\u0026hellip;working. In fact, working on the finishing touches for the site design which, unless you\u0026rsquo;re reading this in an RSS reader, is now before your eyes. So you\u0026rsquo;d better like it. Anyway, the reason this is somewhat noteworthy is that there\u0026rsquo;s no technical reason I had to do this. Well, a while back I decided to switch servers, which is about a week-long process, and so I set myself the goal of going live with the new design on the day that I\u0026rsquo;d have to cancel billing for the old server, namely yesterday. It was a somewhat arbitrary goal, but one I knew I would probably need if I was ever going to get stuff done.\nAs the time approached, it became clear that much more work would be required than I thought. Building an online store is pretty rough, particularly when the API is complicated, uses lots of tools, any of which could break making it very hard to debug, and one is given no specifications at all for how it should work or what it should look like or what will even be in it. Moreover, since I don\u0026rsquo;t have a working PC at the moment, I was unable to test the design for IE as I was going along (and I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to in any case). I realized one night at about 1am that IE doesn\u0026rsquo;t support transparent PNG files (picture files), so all the cool little black-and-white auto-generated buttons you see in Firefox and Safari\u0026hellip;well those were not-so-cool little black-and-white-and-neon-green buttons in IE. I tried a million hacks to get it to work, but to no avail with PHP-generated image code. And that was about 4 unplanned and unnecessary hours of wasted time.\nSo here\u0026rsquo;s the point: as soon as I realized that I would need to spend a lot of time on this, I went in to what I will call \u0026ldquo;consumed\u0026rdquo; mode. In other words, I decided that I would eat, drink, and not sleep coding this site until I was done. Of course, along with that decision came the loss of all vestiges of a healthy lifestyle\u0026hellip;I was awake from 9 or 10 am until 5 am, sitting at my computer, not eating anything, like a little hunchback gnome typing away at keys. My right hand was and is completely fried\u0026ndash;either tendonitis or something else render it a continual mass of dull pain. I switched over a year ago to using my mouse with my left hand, but it hasn\u0026rsquo;t really helped.\nI realized throughout that, in consumed mode, I actually get a lot of stuff done! I mean, I didn\u0026rsquo;t read, go outside, make or play music, hang out with people, spend time thinking about life or real issues, or do any of the things that makes mine a well-rounded and satisfying existence\u0026hellip;but I was a coding fiend. My work efficiency increased tenfold. It occurred to me how it must feel to be one of those people who really focuses on one single thing in life, and it was kind of cool. It made me wonder if that\u0026rsquo;s not a way I\u0026rsquo;m supposed to be\u0026hellip;you see there\u0026rsquo;s something about my personality which makes it very easy to enter consumed mode when I first discover something new that I want to create or excel in. A sport, a class, a song, a book, a hobby, a writing project, anything\u0026hellip; The initial moments are intense and productive, but then I quickly get bored or realize that it will actually take a lot of work, and I lose interest and move on to other things.\nThis habit has meant that I have had an extremely wide range of experiences, have tried many new things, and have the gear/paraphernalia for more hobbies/pursuits than anyone I know or have heard of. What it also means is that I tend not to (a) excel at things to the extend that I have the ability, and/or (b) finish projects that I start. On my computer right now are probably failed attempts at at least 5 novels, and twice as many sets of song lyrics. If it doesn\u0026rsquo;t happen in the first day, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to happen at all. That\u0026rsquo;s typically the way my music writing goes\u0026ndash;a blast of creativity, and then, if that spark doesn\u0026rsquo;t carry me through to completion\u0026hellip;the song usually never gets fully written and I forget about it.\nSo, I have been trying to think differently and grow in my creativity by actually setting aside time to work diligently on songs or writings. I\u0026rsquo;m working on a song now, for instance, where for the first time I sat down with paper and pen, drew out staves, and worked on a melody line in standard musical nutation, over the course of a whole week. It\u0026rsquo;s giving me a lot of frustrations and when I sit down with a guitar to work on more of it, I\u0026rsquo;m always tempted to try something else that holds the promise of being a quick project. However, I\u0026rsquo;m trying to believe that by actually working on this song, it will be better, not worse, for the amount of time I put into it. We shall see.\nI\u0026rsquo;m very wary, of course, about committing too much to one thing (i.e., being in consumed mode all the time). I mean, I very much feel the pain of not being able to say that I am passionate about one and only one thing. In fact, I felt that pain tonight very strongly, as I went climbing with a group of people who are all vastly more committed to the pursuit than I am. I felt like I very much wanted to commit myself to climbing to the same degree, so that I could do the things they were doing and have the ability to climb so many more routes and types of routes than I can now. But, I knew that if I made that decision, I would have to give up so many more things\u0026hellip;and I just can\u0026rsquo;t bring myself to do that.\nUltimately, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what is the most healthy for me. Some people are in consumed mode for work all the time, and others for a sport or a hobby. I can\u0026rsquo;t seem to want to live there for very long. What surprised me most of all, to tell the truth, was that I was able to force myself into it these last few days at all! It must say something about the type of work that I have that, when my paycheck is neither on the line (that I know of) nor overlarge, I\u0026rsquo;m still willing and able to pull 4 all-nighters in a row for a project. I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have thought it possible in general, but especially for that length of time. Now the task is to re-enter life and to try and find a healthy balance. Finding this balance will be more on the forefront of my mind now, however, as I\u0026rsquo;ll maybe start to think if there any things I should let go in order to excel in other things I love more deeply. Honestly, I think the problem is that I love so many things to such a deep degree that that would be a nonsensical venture. I\u0026rsquo;ll be thinking about it, though, especially now that I know that spending a lot of time on something actually produces results\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s an alien concept to my personality.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/01/adventures-in-consumed-mode/","summary":"For the last three nights, I stayed up till an average hour of 5am\u0026hellip;working. In fact, working on the finishing touches for the site design which, unless you\u0026rsquo;re reading this in an RSS reader, is now before your eyes. So you\u0026rsquo;d better like it. Anyway, the reason this is somewhat noteworthy is that there\u0026rsquo;s no technical reason I had to do this. Well, a while back I decided to switch servers, which is about a week-long process, and so I set myself the goal of going live with the new design on the day that I\u0026rsquo;d have to cancel billing for the old server, namely yesterday. It was a somewhat arbitrary goal, but one I knew I would probably need if I was ever going to get stuff done.","title":"Adventures In \"Consumed\" Mode"},{"content":"Since around October, the relentless marketing machine at Apple had been hammering away at the (admittedly thin) walls of my financial restraint such that, a few weeks after Christmas, I decided I absolutely needed a new iPod\u0026ndash;a video one. My then-current 60gb iPod, with a color screen and the ability to show photo slideshows just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t cut it anymore. So when I got back to California, I began once again a charming love-hate relationship with craigslist SF. You see, however much I knew I needed the $399 video iPod, I knew that I should be able to get it cheaper. A few days of monitoring craigslist via keyword RSS confirmed this, and I was flooded with ads for new-in-box video iPods, all between $300 and $380. Of course, a large portion of these are scams, and a larger portion are sold within 25 minutes of being posted (supply of unopened and unwanted iPods was high because of recent gift-exchange-based holidays having occurred, so the prices were pushed very low). Nevertheless, a few days and many failed deal attempts later, I found someone willing to meet me somewhere in the east bay to trade a still-shrinkwrapped 60gb video and agent18 case for a price which, when all was said and done, would save me about $100.\nI took BART underneath the bay and to Walnut Creek, walked out of the turnstiles, handed over the cash, got an iPod, and got back on a return train within 2 minutes of having departed the last one. I walked straight to the Apple store in SF and exchanged my newly-purchased iPod for one from the store (I wanted a black one), sans receipt. All in all, an incredible experience. The next day, I used craigslist to sell my old iPod for a price not too far from the one at which I had purchased my new player! Brilliant.\nThis experience spawned two discussions I wanted to share. First, I realized how easy it is for me to become fixated on some material goal, to the extent that I am willing to spend hours and hours monitoring websites, e-mailing people, and taking trains all around the bay for it. I am one who forms habits fairly quickly, and after a few days of constantly checking craigslist, I noticed something changing in me\u0026ndash;the iPod which was the object of my desire had passed from being a toy which I thought it would be fun to have, into something that subconsciously I truly believed I needed. I was Frodo, but instead of a burning wheel of fire in front of my eyes, there was a slick Apple-designed piece of obsidian, thumping with seductive media possibilities. Luckily, this scared me enough that I was able to take a step back and evaluate whether such a new toy was really healthy. Under the circumstances, which were that the purchase would involve little to no financial sacrifice, I decided it was OK to upgrade. My hope is that if in the future I become fixated with something less benign (say an expensive car, or a new bike, a new snowboard, or any of a million things it could occur to me to want), I will likewise feel the sort of uneasiness I experienced last week while there is still time to evaluate in a level-headed manner.\nSecondly, I had ample time to think more deeply about \u0026ldquo;iPod culture\u0026rdquo; in general. It seems clear that an iPod exists to serve consumers in two ways. To begin with, it lets you control the what of your media consumption/experience. It allows you to listen to your tunes, or watch your videos. No more listening to the radio, to the clatter of the train, to the conversation of those people over there, to the sound of the birds, to the dumb thump of the rap music in that car. With the advent of video content, you are now no longer forced to watch whatever is on TV, or whatever your friend is watching, or whatever your family is watching. You have complete control over the what of your media.\nYou also have complete control over the when of your media consumption. The iPod fits in your pocket. You can listen to it now. You can watch videos on it now. This is probably obvious, but maybe it\u0026rsquo;s worth saying that having control over the when of your media consumption means an increase in media consumption. No one buys an iPod to listen to music less! So you can listen to music or watch videos whenever you want, and whenever that is, it is more than you listened to or watched before.\nIt should already be clear that the creation of such an environment is incredibly good for business. The individualization of music and video tastes leads to greater sales\u0026ndash;we no longer need to sell to an entire household; we can sell to each member of the house! Dad likes different movies and music than daughter, so they each buy their own preferred set. The time-ubiquity of music and video also straightforwardly lends itself to business\u0026ndash;more time spent listening to tunes means that more tunes are required and therefore purchased. Apple and the other digital content providers are well situated to make a killing off of us (and they have been doing so).\nSo far everything that I\u0026rsquo;ve said has been value-neutral\u0026hellip;but is there anything to seriously praise and/or criticize about this digital media lifestyle? On the one hand, I am extremely glad to be able to control what sorts of media I consume. My tastes in music have not usually been particularly mainstream, and so having the option to listen to music I like instead of what is on the radio is quite nice. Likewise, my appetite for new music, for efficiently searching and finding new artists and sounds, is greatly helped by being able to listen to music for just about 100% of my waking day. I can rise from my bed and throw iTunes into a party shuffle that lasts for the full 8 hours of the workday. If I drive anywhere, I can plug my iPod into the audio-in jack in my car stereo. If I walk or run anywhere, I can do it while listening to a randomly-generated set of songs chosen from any of my scores of smart playlists. Moreover, I could rinse/wash/repeat every day for 4 months without hearing the same song twice. In sum, it is quite easy to become a music consumption machine\u0026ndash;pop in a song, manufacture a feeling or memory, and output a time-dependent value judgment. Art literally flows through my body more often than not!\nOn the other hand, one wonders if there are any unhealthy side effects to all of this. In fact, it seems like both the what and when aspects of the iPod lifestyle can have negative results. Let\u0026rsquo;s tackle the when aspect first\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s simpler. Basically, when you are listening to music or watching a movie on your iPod, you are eo ipso not listening to or watching something else, namely what is going on around you. Perhaps human senses were designed to be continually titillated by manufactured and produced sights and sounds. But perhaps they were not. What are we missing while consuming media? For some people, maybe not much\u0026ndash;in truth, maybe it helps some escape from otherwise dreary family situations. But one thing is certain, which is that it precludes silence. It therefore precludes the kind of silence that our culture studiously avoids, which is the kind wherein you cannot get away from the questions you haven\u0026rsquo;t been asking yourself (but need to). For many of us, the constant presence of music might be nothing more than a numbing agent designed to frighten away an insistent silence that we have been putting off for so long we\u0026rsquo;re embarrassed even to recognize its existence.\nBeyond silence, headphones also shut out other kinds of music, not produced in studios by important men in ties while watching 18-year old company-made superstars gyrating in front of unimpressed microphones. I am, of course, referring to the noises found outside of our iPod-induced isolations. Birds, wind, rain, the voices of a crowd, footsteps, and all the rest. Headphones function both ways, too: they don\u0026rsquo;t just keep other things away from you; in addition, they keep you away from those other things. They can be effectively a wall, which is precisely why so many people wear them so visibly.\nNow, to the what. iPods allow me to listen to what I want, alone. I don\u0026rsquo;t have to consult anyone else to see if she is OK with my choice of song or video. To see why this is important, I need to introduce the concept of responsibility for consumption. Humans are made to consume certain things in certain ways. Food is an obvious example\u0026ndash;humans need to consume food, and it is good that they do so. However, as various eating disorders show us, there are healthy and not-so-healthy ways to engage in this project of food consumption. To the extent that our own (and only our own) choices lead to health or illness, it seems right to say that we have a responsibility for those choices. In the case of food, this responsibility is cashed out in terms of responsibility to our body. Exercise is also a responsibility we have in the same area. None of this is surprising.\nWhat I want to claim is that media consumption (and here I would distinguish \u0026ldquo;media\u0026rdquo; from \u0026ldquo;art\u0026rdquo; ) bears similar responsibilities to food consumption, in that these are all things which we take into our bodies (or minds), and which affect us in certain ways according to their particularities. Hot dogs are different than apples. Handel is different than Britney Spears. More than that bare difference, I want to argue a value difference in media, analogous to a health difference in food. I wish it were the case that there were no \u0026ldquo;bad media\u0026rdquo;, but unfortunately there is. In the same way that some foods are unhealthy and/or addictive, some media can affect us negatively or engender addictive behavior (pornography being the classic example, and new forms of it joining the audio realm\u0026ndash;the addictiveness proven by a trip to Odeo\u0026rsquo;s Top 40).\nSo, every time we decide to consume a piece of media, we have a certain responsibility to ourselves, just like when we are eating. For the most part, this responsibility stays hidden in the background, and we don\u0026rsquo;t have to worry about it\u0026ndash;our natural inclinations take care of us just fine. But in unique situations, such a responsibility can become a very palpable burden. With the proliferation of media via the internet, and the classic gatekeepers of media art (the record labels, the video studios) not being able to staunch the flow of new independent artists willing to self-promote, we are completely surrounded on all sides by songs and movies clamoring for our attention, screaming for the privilege of being on our iPods. Since in iPod culture we make all our own media choices, this means that we are left all alone to deal with this onslaught. The responsibility to consume healthily now becomes harder, as we have to choose hundreds of times a day whether this is good music or bad, whether I like it or not, whether I should watch it or not, and so on. Eventually, these choices paralyze us, and we are left looking at a device which promised to give us just what we want, but no longer having the ability even to know what that is! I can\u0026rsquo;t count the times I\u0026rsquo;ve spent upwards of 10 minutes scrolling through my iTunes library because every time I see an album I\u0026rsquo;d like to listen to, I can\u0026rsquo;t be sure that it\u0026rsquo;s really the \u0026ldquo;best\u0026rdquo; to hear at the moment.\nUltimately, this is just another facet of the modern, consumeristic, capitalist lifestyle where the market is flooded with dozens of basically-identical products, the marketing behind each of which aims to convince us just how different they really are. We go to the grocery store and see a hundred different kinds of cereal, and we are immediately besieged; which of these cereals is the best? Which is the best value? Which is healthiest? Which tastes best? Sometimes you feel like leaving the store because you just can\u0026rsquo;t handle that kind of pressure. And it is exactly that pressure which threatens to hover over us as we carry our iPods to work and on our afternoon jogs.\nNone of that is to say that the personal media player is evil or even slightly bad. I merely want to emphasize how, in our current cultural context, an iPod comes with more than a $400 price tag\u0026ndash;it actually comes with a surprisingly large set of responsibilities, both to oneself and to the world. Or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not so surprising\u0026ndash;with any technical or economic advance comes an increase in power and possibility, along with a concomitant increase in responsibility. Apple\u0026rsquo;s marketing is really great at portraying the possibilities their media players can grant us, but we cannot trust them to know, or to tell us, what sorts of responsibilities might go hand in hand with the power they provide\u0026ndash;the power of instant, on-demand, and infinitely customizable media. I hope I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to illuminate both edges of that sword.\nNow, if you\u0026rsquo;ll excuse me, I have to go watch a few episodes of Firefly on my new video iPod. Or wait\u0026hellip;should I watch Arrested Development?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/01/ipod-culture-and-the-weight-of-consumerism/","summary":"Since around October, the relentless marketing machine at Apple had been hammering away at the (admittedly thin) walls of my financial restraint such that, a few weeks after Christmas, I decided I absolutely needed a new iPod\u0026ndash;a video one. My then-current 60gb iPod, with a color screen and the ability to show photo slideshows just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t cut it anymore. So when I got back to California, I began once again a charming love-hate relationship with \u003ca href=\"http://craigslist.org\"\u003ecraigslist SF\u003c/a\u003e. You see, however much I knew I needed the $399 video iPod, I knew that I should be able to get it cheaper. A few days of monitoring craigslist via keyword RSS confirmed this, and I was flooded with ads for new-in-box video iPods, all between $300 and $380. Of course, a large portion of these are scams, and a larger portion are sold within 25 minutes of being posted (supply of unopened and unwanted iPods was high because of recent gift-exchange-based holidays having occurred, so the prices were pushed very low). Nevertheless, a few days and many failed deal attempts later, I found someone willing to meet me somewhere in the east bay to trade a still-shrinkwrapped 60gb video and agent18 case for a price which, when all was said and done, would save me about $100.","title":"iPod Culture and the Weight of Consumerism"},{"content":"After over a year of building characters and wandering around the World of Warcraft, I\u0026rsquo;ve decided to cancel my subscription. The trouble with these massively-multiplayer world-immersive games is layed out in the following set of claims:\nA monthly subscription is expensive. The game is designed in such a way that, after an initial phase, the entertainment it provides is exponentially related to the amount of time you put into it. In order to get the maximum value out of the game, in terms of both money and entertainment, one is forced to play a lot. Playing massively-multiplayer games a lot can be intrinsically unhealthy if in a person\u0026rsquo;s lifestyle it precludes other more important activites. It is also potentially addictive, and can be unhealthy in that way as well. Now, I haven\u0026rsquo;t been playing in an unhealthy way\u0026ndash;in fact, I haven\u0026rsquo;t been playing at all. My decision to quit is more a financial one, and also as a result of the dilemma above, which shows that to get the desired amount of entertainment, one must choose effectively to be unhealthy in some way.\nThat being said, my visits to Azeroth (the fantasy world in Warcraft) were indeed fun and provided many hours of enjoyment, particularly when I was able to play alongside my brother and sister. Such cooperative play was made all the more meaningful in virtue of the fact that I live across the country from them and had no real other way to hang out. I will retain many fond memories of our quests, guild drama, and laughing at the plethora of idiots that occupy any online community (but particularly gaming communities). So here\u0026rsquo;s to Telarian, Telariz, and Tsarmina!\nTelarian and Telariz surveying the snow plains below Ironforge\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/01/farewell-azeroth/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter over a year of building characters and wandering around the \u003ca href=\"http://worldofwarcraft.com\"\u003eWorld of Warcraft\u003c/a\u003e, I\u0026rsquo;ve decided to cancel my subscription. The trouble with these massively-multiplayer world-immersive games is layed out in the following set of claims:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA monthly subscription is expensive.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe game is designed in such a way that, after an initial phase, the entertainment it provides is exponentially related to the amount of time you put into it.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eIn order to get the maximum value out of the game, in terms of both money and entertainment, one is forced to play \u003cem\u003ea lot\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePlaying massively-multiplayer games \u003cem\u003ea lot\u003c/em\u003e can be intrinsically unhealthy if in a person\u0026rsquo;s lifestyle it precludes other more important activites. It is also potentially addictive, and can be unhealthy in that way as well.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow, I haven\u0026rsquo;t been playing in an unhealthy way\u0026ndash;in fact, I haven\u0026rsquo;t been playing at all. My decision to quit is more a financial one, and also as a result of the dilemma above, which shows that to get the desired amount of entertainment, one must choose effectively to be unhealthy in some way.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Farewell, Azeroth!"},{"content":"In my 2005 recap entry, I mentioned that about a year ago, some of us in Palo Alto got together and threw some ideas about forming a spiritual community down on paper. Those ideas remained in that uncollected form during the following year while we began to work through them. A few weeks ago, I had some time and motivation, so I recast them into a short paper\u0026ndash;a sort of bare-bones introduction to the kind of community we have been trying to instantiate here. I thought it might be an interesting discussion-starter, or even just an interesting read for some of you. Here it is:\nVision, Values, and Praxis for a Community of Faith ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/01/vision-values-and-praxis-for-a-community-of-faith/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn my 2005 recap entry, I mentioned that about a year ago, some of us in Palo Alto got together and threw some ideas about forming a spiritual community down on paper. Those ideas remained in that uncollected form during the following year while we began to work through them. A few weeks ago, I had some time and motivation, so I recast them into a short paper\u0026ndash;a sort of bare-bones introduction to the kind of community we have been trying to instantiate here. I thought it might be an interesting discussion-starter, or even just an interesting read for some of you. Here it is:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Vision, Values, and Praxis for a Community of Faith"},{"content":"Many of you will have already heard about this via e-mails from me or Dan, but if not, check out this site that we made for an expedition of sorts this spring:\nsummitwhitney.com ","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/01/summit-whitney-2006/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMany of you will have already heard about this via e-mails from me or Dan, but if not, check out this site that we made for an expedition of sorts this spring:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://summitwhitney.com\"\u003esummitwhitney.com\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Summit Whitney 2006"},{"content":"I have a tradition (since 2000, I think) where, sometime in the first week of the new year, I drive to see the sunrise at Cocoa beach. I like to spend a few hours watching the beautiful scene, giving myself time and space to pray, meditate, wander around, and generally get centered for the upcoming year.\nThis year, T-Bone accompanied me to Cocoa, where we were greeted by an absolutely amazing sunrise, replete with a flock of gulls that would zoom and flutter about, putting on an amazing show:\nBut then, a few minutes later, we saw this:\nLook at the middle-left of the image: that\u0026rsquo;s right! A shark was cruising through the water, not 30 feet off the beach (notice the pigeon for scale). Actually, there were two sharks, though I only got a shot of one. The fins were only above water as the waves would break over them, so it was hard to get a good view. Was this shark a sign of some kind? Was God warning us about something?\nLater on, not realizing that if two sharks were a sign of anything, they would surely import \u0026ldquo;DON\u0026rsquo;T GO IN THE WATER!\u0026rdquo;, T-Bone and I took a swim in the ocean. What could be more relishing than being able to go in the water on January 2nd? It was a bit cold, but quite bearable and refreshing. And, as we have now proven, shark infested. Unless, of course, one of you is a marine biologist and believes the picture is actually of a dolphin.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2006/01/an-omen-ous-new-year/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have a tradition (since 2000, I think) where, sometime in the first week of the new year, I drive to see the sunrise at Cocoa beach. I like to spend a few hours watching the beautiful scene, giving myself time and space to pray, meditate, wander around, and generally get centered for the upcoming year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis year, \u003ca href=\"http://teleios.us/weblogs/tbone/\"\u003eT-Bone\u003c/a\u003e accompanied me to Cocoa, where we were greeted by an absolutely amazing sunrise, replete with a flock of gulls that would zoom and flutter about, putting on an amazing show:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"An Omen-ous New Year"},{"content":"As 2005, a year that has seen many and incredible changes in my life, draws to a close, I thought it appropriate to mention some of the personal highlights, and make observations about these last 365 days from a perspective blessed with hindsight. So now, in hopefully chronological order, here are the things that were important to me since December 31, 2004 (some significant events being censored to protect certain individuals, of course).\nNote: if the event which I am describing has been written about previously on one of my weblogs or something similar, I offer a link to that entry, called \u0026ldquo;read more\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;.\n2005 began somewhat inauspiciously at my family\u0026rsquo;s then-residence in Orlando, along with most of my Stanford draw group. We were too busy playing cards and drinking white russians to give the incoming year much attention, so it sort of snuck in. More importantly, as has likely been told previously, New Year\u0026rsquo;s 2005 was situated in the middle of a very significant process for me, namely making the decision to move back to California or not. I\u0026rsquo;d spent a good amount of time back in Palo Alto since November, and had talked seriously with some friends there about forming a sort of spiritual community. Of course, I eventually moved (see below), but at that time things were very much still in the air, and so I was constantly weighing options and feelings, and hoping that God would lead me one way or the other. (read more\u0026hellip;) (Early January) Version 1 of e4:online (the web app I have been developing for Teleios since Oct 2004) went live. It had minimal features, and looked a whole lot worse than it does now. It still doesn\u0026rsquo;t look/work quite well enough, so the last year has been spent on the same project, which will hopefully be more done soon. (January 16) I ran a half-marathon by myself in Orlando, in 1h50m. It marks the longest distance I\u0026rsquo;ve ever run (the record still stands). Unfortunately, shortly thereafter my knees begin to act up which impedes my running for the rest of the year. (read more\u0026hellip;) (January 20) Back in Palo Alto, I write a song which is tentatively called \u0026ldquo;Chapter II\u0026rdquo;. The song is significant because it is the first to be written for the concept album I recently imagined. It\u0026rsquo;s basically a story-format album, with each chapter unfolding a bit more of, for lack of a better genre, a fairy tale. Since then, I\u0026rsquo;ve written a number of other songs for the album (including the one also for Nyffy\u0026rsquo;s wedding\u0026ndash;see below), though it is not finished at the end of 2005. \u0026ldquo;Chapter II\u0026rdquo; was later recorded in April (get it here. (January 22) In what was, in hindsight, the first community retreat for our group in Palo Alto, a few of us went up to my family\u0026rsquo;s apartment in San Francisco for a weekend, with the goal of hammering out a vision of community we could put into words and use as an invitation for our friends. We wanted something fairly concrete to approach others with, and so we spent a good many hours thinking, writing, and praying. This event was significant for a number of reasons. It more or less defined the shape of the experiment that we wanted to try over the next year, but beyond that, it solidified my feeling that the best course of action for me was in fact to move back to Palo Alto. (January 23) At the end of the weekend, we had a meeting with about 15 people at the Bott household, and shared our vision with them. Out of that night, probably more than any other specific moment, came the community which is now my home. (Early February) I met with my boss Pavi over lunch and inform him of my intentions to move to California. Out of sheer graciousness, he agreed to let me continue working for Teleios (then Excelsis) long-distance from the west coast. With only such green lights ahead, I felt increasingly confident that I had made the right decision. (read more\u0026hellip;). (February 8) I gathered what things I could fit on the airplane and flew to San Jose, officially moving to California. 3 months ago, the idea would have been completely preposterous, but now it had happened (read more\u0026hellip;). (Rest of February) I lived in the 447 house with a bunch of girls, since I had no place to stay in Palo Alto, and since Erin was gone for the month on a trip to Peru, leaving an empty room in the house. It was a really fun time, and I discovered that for the most part girls are fairly pleasant house companions. Cleaner, on the whole. I lived at their place until April (excepting the few times when Erin was in town, of course). (March 2) I flew back to Orlando for a few days to pack up my car and belongings, in preparation for the drive out to California which would complete my move. Erin had agreed to co-pilot cross-country, so we weaved our way west, stopping to see various people we knew along the road. (March etc) For a month or so, I took a break from working on the web app and spent some time fixing up and outlining the transcript for Graham Tomlin\u0026rsquo;s summer 2004 course. This was a significant experience for me, as it enabled me to engage once again with material that was very formative in terms of my current faith experience, especially as it pertained to community. (March 23) Started writing iRateTunes, which I finished about a month later. (more\u0026hellip;) (March 30) I flew to Gainesville to be with my brother David, whose engagement with a girl had just ended. They were to be married in a few months, and it was an incredibly hard time for him and our family. Dav and I needed something to do, so that\u0026rsquo;s when we recorded \u0026ldquo;Chapter II\u0026rdquo;. (April 10) Excelsis becomes Teleios. What will be next? Will it be another word in some ancient language? (April 11) I moved in with Justin Smith and Dan Gannon at the unused Young Life house in East Palo Alto. EPA is a very different place than the Palo Alto across the 101, and things like shootings and drug deals happen all too frequently. So close to Stanford, but we were very insulated there from the reality on the other side of the highway. Justin and Dan each had their own reasons for living there. Mine were (a) cheap rent, (b) living with Justin, and (c) exploring life in a less affluent part of Palo Alto, to see if maybe our community had a place in a location like that. I lived there with Justin until early July, when we finally got our current apartment (and were kicked out because Young Life decided to use the house again). I avoided buying any furniture and successfully slept in a sleeping bag for 3 months, and managed to live very simply there. I can\u0026rsquo;t say that I even tried to integrate myself into the surrounding neighborhood community, except for sporadic (but meaningful) conversations in Spanish with our next-door neighbor. Ultimately, while the state of the area did constantly break my heart, the issues our own community of friends were exploring demanded all of my time and passion. (All spring) Things with community had begun to pick up, and we had started to have long dinner-gatherings once a week. These facilitated our drawing closer as a group, our exploration of many topics (including the one of service-based housing choices etc), our worshiping together, and so on. In addition, our lives began to be more integrated with one another\u0026rsquo;s, and we experienced many cool events and times together which I will not chronicle here. These experiences, of course, were not always attended only by benefits, but sometimes frustrations as well, which was to be expected. (April 17) We started planning for our community retreat to Costa Rica, which eventually took place in August (April 23) Epic backpacking trip in Big Sur with the guys, replete with really cold hot springs. (April 27) Flew to Gainesville for my brother David\u0026rsquo;s graduation from UF. (April 28) Started reading El Alquimista, which, since I actually finished it, became the first full-length Spanish book I read, apart from the New Testament (April/May) Community had discussions centered around whether or not we wanted to live all together in one big house, or more separately. I had a lot of excitement towards the idea of living together, and it didn\u0026rsquo;t pan out, which was frustrating. (read more\u0026hellip;). (May 12) Family retreat in Napa. (May 28) Epic trip to Santa Barbara (see pictures\u0026hellip;) (June 1) Ultimately, in lieu of the community house idea, 5 of us guys decided to find an apartment together. We ended up choosing College Terrace over EPA, which was a hard decision but made because we did not feel that the community was ready to be placed in an environment like that yet, and moreover some in the community in PA would have refused to go to EPA for various reasons anyhow; we put a high premium on physical proximity. So began the serious hunt for apartments (June) Climbing in Pinnacles, Su Madre movers day, epic night-hike of half-dome, and Nyffy\u0026rsquo;s wedding in St Augustine (for which I had the honor of writing a song). (Read a lot more / see pictures\u0026hellip;) (Late June) My family moved homes in Orlando, to the place where I\u0026rsquo;m now writing. (Late June) Nyffelers move to Palo Alto and find a place a mile from our future residence, it is awesome! Thus commences auditory readings of Harry Potter 6. (Early July) My future roommates and I finally found a place to live in College Terrace, right by Stanford. Miraculously, two 2-bedroom places opened up right next to each other, and right next to the Botts\u0026rsquo; apartment. So 7 of us were in the same building, if not the same house! (July 11) I sprained my ankle very badly playing tennis, which put me out of athletic commission until Costa Rica, mid-August. (August 1) I write one of the more important blog entries of the year: My Defining Sadnesses (August 9) Current design goes live at teleios.us! (August 10) Community retreat for 2 weeks in Costa Rica; there are 10 of us. It is a very incredible time\u0026ndash;overseas, so I love it, and I get to use and refine my Spanish. We rent two 4WD SUVs and go all over the country, exploring beaches and jungle. We get to a cool spot and spend 5 days there, pretty much all alone, which is a very meaningful time spiritually for all of us, and it really solidifies the community. For perhaps the first time, I feel that we are all on the same page. (read more\u0026hellip;) (September 3) Another epic backpacking trip in Hetch-Hetchy with the guys. I spend most of my time in the beautiful scenery rather depressed about girls, and take any opportunity to go climb up rocks and hills by myself, and stare off into space, and feel alien to the world. This feeling only intensifies over the next few months, and begins to define my experience, which I write about later. Anyway, (see pictures). (September 13) Justin and I code podornot.com (read more\u0026hellip;) (September 14-15) At Anne\u0026rsquo;s invitation, I speak to two of her history classes about philosophy. It\u0026rsquo;s the first time I\u0026rsquo;ve taught since I TA\u0026rsquo;ed a few years ago, and it was a really cool experience. (Mid September) Community stuff begins to be very frustrating to me, and I begin to see a lot in myself that I don\u0026rsquo;t particularly like as well, especially in terms of how I interact with others in the community. These frustrations eventually come to an emotional head in late October / November before they are resolved. (read more\u0026hellip;) (September 26) I turn 23. (read more\u0026hellip;) (September 30) In a move somewhat reminiscent of desperation, I decide to e-mail one of Jenna\u0026rsquo;s Italian girl friends. She seems cool and then all of a sudden stops responding. Oh well! (October 2) I finish reading the Kierkegaard anthology I have been working through. Reading the book was a very deep and spiritual experience, and propelled my thinking further than it had been before in a lot of areas. (read more\u0026hellip;) (August - October) Sigur Ros\u0026rsquo; new album, Takk, completely captivates me, particularly their music video for \u0026ldquo;Glosoli\u0026rdquo;. (read more\u0026hellip;) (October 13) Recent interactions with Christians push me further and further away from any stake I have or want to have in Christian culture, and I express it by writing this. (October 14) I ran the Palo Alto moonlight 10k, the first race I\u0026rsquo;d done since freshman year. I did well, coming in at 44:40. Importantly, my body felt healthy during \u0026ldquo;training\u0026rdquo; and after the run. (October 15) Dan and I were accepted for the Whitney climb for 2006\u0026rsquo;s Summit for Someone campaign. (blog entry to come) (October 23) Saw the most amazing sunset of the year with friends, at Windy Hill. (read more\u0026hellip;) (October 31) Nick, Jenna, and Justin accompanied me to Orlando for Teleios\u0026rsquo; seminar with Alister McGrath, which we filmed at a Disney soundstage. It was an amazing week which reawakened my love of academic interaction (I got to spend a bit of one-on-one time with Dr McGrath and ask some relatively burning philosophical questions), and awakened an interest in his project of a \u0026ldquo;scientific theology\u0026rdquo;. I got a copy of his recently-published trilogy, and am working through it now\u0026ndash;it is very fruitful for my current thoughts on many issues. (read more\u0026hellip;) (November 7) Some tensions based on different understandings of the vision/goal of the group had been slowly building within the community. We were able to lay these out on the table and discuss them in a very healthy and growthful way, which was incredible. Where we ended left me very sad, though, owing primarily to the way I\u0026rsquo;d been using community emotionally in a potentially-unhealthy way. Realizing this, and where other people were at, left me feeling simultaneously foolish, alone, and abandoned. I understood that a lot of what had happened fit similar patterns to how things tend to develop romantically for me. This brought to the fore the frustrations with that sphere, and illustrated how they undergird most, if not all, of what appear to be my central hurts. Such thoughts propelled me into a state of despair (a better word than depression) like I hadn\u0026rsquo;t experienced (or hadn\u0026rsquo;t allowed myself to). That\u0026rsquo;s when I wrote this entry. A few days later, I wrote the corresponding song. While these exercises helped, especially in the area of anger against God, the feelings I describe still define, though more dimly and numbly, my current day-to-day experience. I am not excited about this, and hope more than anything else that 2006 holds the key to moving on from here. (November 17) I finally finished rating my whole iTunes library. (read more\u0026hellip;) (November 20) Went to Orlando for a really wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my family and extended family (from both sides). Also, for certain reasons felt a good deal more hope, unrelatedly in regards to both community and women, than on November 7. (November 23) My brother Dav and I recorded a Christmas EP (more\u0026hellip;) at our new studio, which we designed along with our family\u0026rsquo;s new house in Orlando, and which is awesome. In fact, throughout the last six months we had been piecing together songs for a new album\u0026ndash;not the concept album I mentioned, but a re-recording of many older Splendour Hyaline songs, and some new ones as well. The recording is slow going, but the quality we are getting is fantastic, and we can\u0026rsquo;t wait to share the fruits of these labors with you. (December 1) Our community had a weekend retreat in Tahoe, which contained a good deal of hanging around. It was significant because I felt that the tensions which seemed so sharp in October and November had lessened a good deal, and we were all able to interact as friends and spiritual compatriots regardless\u0026hellip;which seemed a rare and awesome gift in any group of people. (December 8) I saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which was a very emotional and powerful experience for me. Those stories have been such a part of my life and mythology for so long (I mean, our band is named \u0026ldquo;Splendour Hyaline\u0026rdquo;\u0026hellip;) that seeing many things come to life on the screen just caused me to weep. I never wrote any sort of review of it, but my friend Mr Lowe has done a wonderful job, so I don\u0026rsquo;t feel the need to. (December 15) My family flew to England to meet up with my sister, who is attending Capernwray this year, up north of Manchester. We wandered around the lake district, and then on to Wales. The trip was excellent because (a) the UK is a very magical place for me (maybe owing to the stories I read as a child, which were usually written by Brits), (b) of all the many times I\u0026rsquo;ve been there, it has never been right before Christmas, so it seemed extra magical, and (c) it very rudely reawakened my passionate desire to be in different cultures and learning different languages. There was a deep sense of nostalgia hearing people speak Welsh, even though I\u0026rsquo;d never heard it before. At this point I don\u0026rsquo;t know what the long-term significance of that reawakening will be, if anything meaningful. (read more\u0026hellip;) (December 25) Christmas came and went without too much in the way of ceremony this year. Still, as my favorite holiday, it was a special time, and helped to ease the pain that had been surrounding my heart over the last few months. And that brings us to now, where I sit writing. Let that, therefore, suffice for 2005.\nI\u0026rsquo;m now waiting for the first of our New Year\u0026rsquo;s guests to arrive. We are expecting quite a crowd this year and I am looking forward to an epic party. Guests and drinking mean, of course, that the observational entries I promised regarding the UK will have to wait (and, if history is any indication, will never arrive), and I will next be writing to you from 2006!\nFor now, let us offer one final toast to 2005, which held so much change and so many surprises, good and bad; and, as always, so many indicators of God\u0026rsquo;s faithfulness (though they were sometimes, and often still seem, very hard to see). Cheers!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/2005-in-review/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs 2005, a year that has seen many and incredible changes in my life, draws to a close, I thought it appropriate to mention some of the personal highlights, and make observations about these last 365 days from a perspective blessed with hindsight. So now, in hopefully chronological order, here are the things that were important to me since December 31, 2004 (some significant events being censored to protect certain individuals, of course).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote: if the event which I am describing has been written about previously on one of my weblogs or something similar, I offer a link to that entry, called \u0026ldquo;read more\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"2005 In Review"},{"content":"Last month\u0026rsquo;s emotional bloodletting was musical. Here is this month\u0026rsquo;s: a paragraph that wants to be a poem when it grows up.\nSome violent days the red and rain are all too thunderingly silent, staying stored in Heaven when Earth\u0026rsquo;s ironies are Hellishly blue and clear, spying down on cracked and broken souls that move and labor searching amidst blood for each other to wish wreckage was external, indicating the spiritual state\u0026ndash;less existence equals less pain but color is beautiful and cannot be slain (only why won\u0026rsquo;t it rain singing water, rising up to drown unworth?), but grace prevails, the ship sails and souls float, regarding unjustly their inevitability of being, the world a mockery of them and they of it, made now of shimmering sand when floods should rule till penitence dies and comes again in more wrath and less doom, carving channels of whistling light to lands where mirrors give heed to more than sight, and true lenses perceive the matching hue of Heaven and Earth, for the first time: above and below to agree in mirth.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/discontinuity-reviled/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast month\u0026rsquo;s \u003ca href=\"http://teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/143\"\u003eemotional bloodletting\u003c/a\u003e was musical. Here is this month\u0026rsquo;s: a paragraph that wants to be a poem when it grows up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSome violent days the red and rain are all too thunderingly silent, staying stored in Heaven when Earth\u0026rsquo;s ironies are Hellishly blue and clear, spying down on cracked and broken souls that move and labor searching amidst blood for each other to wish wreckage was external, indicating the spiritual state\u0026ndash;less existence equals less pain but color is beautiful and cannot be slain (only why won\u0026rsquo;t it rain singing water, rising up to drown unworth?), but grace prevails, the ship sails and souls float, regarding unjustly their inevitability of being, the world a mockery of them and they of it, made now of shimmering sand when floods should rule till penitence dies and comes again in more wrath and less doom, carving channels of whistling light to lands where mirrors give heed to more than sight, and true lenses perceive the matching hue of Heaven and Earth, for the first time: above and below to agree in mirth.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Discontinuity Reviled"},{"content":"I went to the UK last week with my family, as we wanted to go and see my sister when she got off from her semester at Capernwray hall, and accompany her home for Christmas. We had a wonderful time wandering around the lake district of England, randomly went to a Delirious concert in Liverpool (my mom is friends with the keyboardist), and then hung out a few days in Wales, hiking up mountains and seeing castles and such.\nApart from being pretty sick the first couple days, it was great to be with family, to be relaxing and eating well, and to be tramping about the windswept hills in 0-degree (celsius) weather.\nIt reminded me how much I love the UK, and being overseas in general. That, plus the generously long (and cocktail-filled) plane flights, made for some good observations and reflections about things I saw or realized last week. I\u0026rsquo;m hoping to write a few entries on those topics soon. Until then, here are some pictures, so you can at least see what things looked like in general over there.\nPictures from the trip at my .Mac picture site\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/uk-trip-12-2005/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI went to the UK last week with my family, as we wanted to go and see my sister when she got off from her semester at Capernwray hall, and accompany her home for Christmas. We had a wonderful time wandering around the lake district of England, randomly went to a \u003ca href=\"http://www.delirious.co.uk/\"\u003eDelirious\u003c/a\u003e concert in Liverpool (my mom is friends with the keyboardist), and then hung out a few days in Wales, hiking up mountains and seeing castles and such.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"UK Trip 12-2005"},{"content":"In physics, there is what is known as the \u0026ldquo;wave-particle duality\u0026rdquo; of photons. Sometimes, light behaves like a particle, and sometimes it behaves like a wave. It seems occasionally to simultaneously follow the rules for particles and waves! This confounds physicists (and me).\nRecently, I have become aware that community is much like this. One might think that a community is just an aggregate of particles (individuals), and so it should behave like an aggregate of individuals. Another might think that a community is like a wave\u0026ndash;it behaves like a single extended entity. These people will treat community differently; the first person will place ultimate foundation in each individual, and will argue that their motions (i.e., the influence of God\u0026rsquo;s will in their life, and their response) qua individuals define the epiphenomenal motions of the community at large. Those of the wave persuasion will argue conversely that God directs the community as a whole according to his will, and the motions of individual members follow like crests and troughs in a wave\u0026ndash;all very connected.\nIt is hard to know within which paradigm I should be viewing community right now. Are we fundamentally separated, and therefore at the end of the day we must discern our calling from God as pertaining to ourselves alone? Or are we fundamentally connected, and must therefore all collectively submit our motions to the movement of the larger group?\nRight now, it seems appropriate to view the motions of some as following the particle paradigm, and others as following the wave paradigm. Are we therefore separate entities (i.e., in separate communities)? Or are we exhibiting the true essence of community and just failing to describe it in classical sociological terms, exactly the same as physicists failed to describe quantum phenomena using Newtonian language?\nWe have been gathering data for a while now, but I think we still need some more. Anyone else have any data worth sharing?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/quantum-community/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn physics, there is what is known as the \u0026ldquo;wave-particle duality\u0026rdquo; of photons. Sometimes, light behaves like a particle, and sometimes it behaves like a wave. It seems occasionally to simultaneously follow the rules for particles and waves! This confounds physicists (and me).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecently, I have become aware that community is much like this. One might think that a community is just an aggregate of particles (individuals), and so it should behave like an aggregate of individuals. Another might think that a community is like a wave\u0026ndash;it behaves like a single extended entity. These people will treat community differently; the first person will place ultimate foundation in each individual, and will argue that their motions (i.e., the influence of God\u0026rsquo;s will in their life, and their response) \u003cem\u003equa\u003c/em\u003e individuals define the epiphenomenal motions of the community at large. Those of the wave persuasion will argue conversely that God directs the community as a whole according to his will, and the motions of individual members follow like crests and troughs in a wave\u0026ndash;all very connected.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Quantum Community"},{"content":"As a gift for all of our friends and family this Christmas, my brother David and I (who comprise Splendour Hyaline) recorded a 3-song Christmas EP, inexplicably called \u0026ldquo;Christmas\u0026rdquo;. Here it is for download in MP3 format (make sure to right-click and Save Target As):\n(cover art by Chris Nyffeler)\nGod Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen O Little Town of Bethlehem It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (for those of you using iTunes, you\u0026rsquo;ll see the album art is already attached to the songs. Otherwise, feel free to copy the image from this page)\nNOTE: Songs are now considered to be the final mix.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/christmas-by-splendour-hyaline/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs a gift for all of our friends and family this Christmas, my brother David and I (who comprise \u003ca href=\"http://myspace.com/splendourhyaline\"\u003eSplendour Hyaline\u003c/a\u003e) recorded a 3-song Christmas EP, inexplicably called \u0026ldquo;Christmas\u0026rdquo;. Here it is for download in MP3 format (make sure to right-click and Save Target As):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/christmas.png\"\u003e\n(cover art by Chris Nyffeler)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/songs/christmas_1.mp3\"\u003eGod Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/songs/christmas_2.mp3\"\u003eO Little Town of Bethlehem\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/songs/christmas_3.mp3\"\u003eIt Came Upon a Midnight Clear\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(for those of you using iTunes, you\u0026rsquo;ll see the album art is already attached to the songs. Otherwise, feel free to copy the image from this page)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Christmas by Splendour Hyaline"},{"content":"Sigh.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/as-seen-on-amazoncom/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSigh.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/amazon.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"As Seen On Amazon.com"},{"content":"Among the billion other things I felt thankful for last week was this sunset (featuring a brilliant Venus which the photo only barely captures):\n(Picture taken from our backyard, looking towards Lake Hart\u0026ndash;one of the few Orlando water bodies that\u0026rsquo;s actually somewhat a lake and not a retention pond)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/12/florida-autumn-sky/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAmong the billion other things I felt thankful for last week was this sunset (featuring a brilliant Venus which the photo only barely captures):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/lake_hart_sunset.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(Picture taken from our backyard, looking towards Lake Hart\u0026ndash;one of the few Orlando water bodies that\u0026rsquo;s actually somewhat a lake and not a retention pond)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Florida Autumn Sky"},{"content":"Over a year ago, I set out on a quest to rate all the songs in my iTunes library. Don\u0026rsquo;t ask me why\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;m a sucker for data, so I had dreams of all the cool scripts I could write and patterns I could find if each song in my library were categorized according to how much I liked it.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly how many songs I had then, but it was probably in the vicinity of 5,000. So even if I rated one song a second, it would have taken an hour and a half. What I decided to do, though, to be fair, was to listen to each song fully before rating it. If an average song is 3 minutes, we need to multiply that 1.5 hours by 180\u0026ndash;270 hours! I was somewhat optimistic that this 270 hours would pass by quickly while I was working or what not.\nI soon discovered that rating songs one-by-one in iTunes was a somewhat inefficient task, given that the only way to rate something was to go into iTunes and click on the little star for that particular song. Not a bad method if you\u0026rsquo;re already in iTunes, but if you are working on something else and would rather not have your workflow interrupted every 3 minutes, it\u0026rsquo;s less than optimal. So I wrote some software (iRateTunes) that let me rate songs with keystrokes, without going to iTunes.\n(I also created a little app that showed me info about my iTunes library in the OS X status bar, including the number of songs left to be rated, and the total amount of time I\u0026rsquo;d spent listening to songs in iTunes. This was so I could monitor my progress)\nStill, even with these tools, it was slow going. It turned out that the mental energy required to rate song after song was somewhat exhausting, so if I could get 100 done per day, that was good. Most days I got far fewer songs rated, and some not at all, depending on the intensity required by my work. An even more exhausting task was keeping a consistent standard with which to rate the songs. There are all sorts of options\u0026ndash;should the ratings be relative to just the songs in my library? Or should it be relative to all the songs in pop culture? Should I try to keep a nice bell curve, so that there are about as many 1-star songs as 5-star songs, and far more 3-stars than either? In the end, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I was super-consistent.\nBut anyway. Today, over a year after I began, my iTunesCount status bar reads: \u0026ldquo;6794/0 | 52.74\u0026rdquo; This means that I have 6794 songs in my library, and 0 are unrated! Finally! The 52.74 lets me know that the total amount of song air time with this iTunes library is 52.74 days (I created the library in July of 2004). That\u0026rsquo;s 1,265 hours! And I don\u0026rsquo;t let iTunes run while I\u0026rsquo;m not there listening.\nStats per rating category: 1-star: 443 songs (6.5%) 2-star: 801 songs (11.8%) 3-star: 2752 songs (40.5%) 4-star: 1836 songs (27%) 5-star: 962 songs (14.2%)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/11/67940-5274/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOver a year ago, I set out on a quest to rate all the songs in my iTunes library. Don\u0026rsquo;t ask me why\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;m a sucker for data, so I had dreams of all the cool scripts I could write and patterns I could find if each song in my library were categorized according to how much I liked it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly how many songs I had then, but it was probably in the vicinity of 5,000. So even if I rated one song a second, it would have taken an hour and a half. What I decided to do, though, to be fair, was to listen to each song fully before rating it. If an average song is 3 minutes, we need to multiply that 1.5 hours by 180\u0026ndash;270 hours! I was somewhat optimistic that this 270 hours would pass by quickly while I was working or what not.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"6794/0 | 52.74"},{"content":"Two weeks ago in Orlando, amidst a balmy 75-degree sunset, I saw workers at a hotel near Disney putting up a huge, white-lit frame with intricate designs around one huge shiny word: \u0026ldquo;ICE\u0026rdquo;. Clearly this very ironic sign was not descriptive of any nearby location or state. Unless they were advertising the effectiveness of their hallway machines.\nToday I walked in to Starbucks in San Francisco to use the restroom, and noticed that everything inside was red and green, with white spinning snowflakey thingies. \u0026ldquo;A Charlie Brown Christmas\u0026rdquo; was playing, and all sorts of \u0026ldquo;seasonal favorites\u0026rdquo; were available for purchase. Mention was made in the various wall advertisements of some \u0026ldquo;spirit\u0026rdquo; of the season which is supposedly upon us, whether we like it or not.\nWell, I don\u0026rsquo;t like it! Not yet, anyway. What is everyone trying to pull? Is nothing sacred? I\u0026rsquo;m actually very angry at our culture right now for trying to tell me that the \u0026ldquo;holiday season\u0026rdquo; is here (and not for any spiritual reasons). The earlier in the year we put up Christmas decorations, or decorations for any holiday, for that matter, the less meaningful they become. Yes, I want to experience the festivity of the various holidays that are soon to arrive. But I don\u0026rsquo;t want to be so bombarded with incessant greed-driven reminders that they are going to be here that I lose all sense of excitement over them.\nI can\u0026rsquo;t think of any more effective way to take the excitement and meaning out of Christmas (or any date-based holiday) than by prepping consumers for it two months in advance. Is there a clearer way to say, \u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t care about the holiday\u0026rdquo; than by implying, \u0026ldquo;What we really care about is the money you spend for it. So spend it now and often\u0026hellip;there\u0026rsquo;s only two months left to give us all your cash! Hurry before time is up!\u0026rdquo; ??\nUgh, it\u0026rsquo;s disgusting.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/11/the-holiday-season/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTwo weeks ago in Orlando, amidst a balmy 75-degree sunset, I saw workers at a hotel near Disney putting up a huge, white-lit frame with intricate designs around one huge shiny word: \u0026ldquo;ICE\u0026rdquo;. Clearly this very ironic sign was not descriptive of any nearby location or state. Unless they were advertising the effectiveness of their hallway machines.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eToday I walked in to Starbucks in San Francisco to use the restroom, and noticed that everything inside was red and green, with white spinning snowflakey thingies. \u0026ldquo;A Charlie Brown Christmas\u0026rdquo; was playing, and all sorts of \u0026ldquo;seasonal favorites\u0026rdquo; were available for purchase. Mention was made in the various wall advertisements of some \u0026ldquo;spirit\u0026rdquo; of the season which is supposedly upon us, whether we like it or not.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The \"Holiday\" Season"},{"content":"Given that I\u0026rsquo;ve been feeling the way I described in my last entry, I decided that I needed to write music. For me, writing and recording music is one of the only healthy ways I have to deal with frustration of various kinds. So last night around 1am, I sat down with my keyboard and decided to write and record a song. What happened next was amazing\u0026ndash;I composed and played something which, more than any other song at the moment I wrote it, mirrored my thoughts and feelings with infinitely better accuracy than any number of words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this song, in terms of how it describes my emotional state, is worth a million.\nI finished recording around 6am (record time, but it felt even faster in my sleep-deprived state combined with the music-induced haze-drone) and took the rough cut on a walk to a nearby hill to see the sunrise and set the song free to God. I listened to it over and over again, noticing how I\u0026rsquo;d surprised myself by making it a little hopeful at the end, which I didn\u0026rsquo;t think I had in me. But listening to the song, I felt that it actually gave me the hope that I\u0026rsquo;d written into it, in a way that I couldn\u0026rsquo;t have got it directly. It felt transcendent.\nI thought I\u0026rsquo;d link to this rough unmixed/unedited cut here. It\u0026rsquo;s stripped down, but to my mind still pulsing with the sorrow and raw emotion I put into it. I have no idea how it will impinge on your auditory senses, but I would definitely recommend listening with good headphones in a quiet place (or outdoors underneath grey skies). If you can, give it your full attention and let it take you where it wants to. I believe that this will clue you in to my current life experience much better and more directly than, say, by reading my last entry.\nSince the song is so connected to what I was writing about in that entry, though, I named it after a phrase that I liked from it. So here it is:\nA Storm Of My Own Devising (it\u0026rsquo;s in iTunes format [m4a] - you\u0026rsquo;ll need to right-click and Save Target As or whatever)\nCheers. I\u0026rsquo;m off to take a nap.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/11/a-storm-of-my-own-devising/","summary":"Given that I\u0026rsquo;ve been feeling the way I described in my last entry, I decided that I needed to write music. For me, writing and recording music is one of the only healthy ways I have to deal with frustration of various kinds. So last night around 1am, I sat down with my keyboard and decided to write and record a song. What happened next was amazing\u0026ndash;I composed and played something which, more than any other song at the moment I wrote it, mirrored my thoughts and feelings with infinitely better accuracy than any number of words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this song, in terms of how it describes my emotional state, is worth a million.","title":"A Storm Of My Own Devising"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m in something of a bad state right now, and I\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly how I got here or what to do about it. I\u0026rsquo;m not even going to attempt my typical philosophical analysis, partly because of apathy and partly because I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it won\u0026rsquo;t help. Instead, I\u0026rsquo;m going to use over-dramatic words to deliver a sense of what I am feeling. You may want to stop reading now.\nBasically, I haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to think of a negative adjective recently that hasn\u0026rsquo;t in some way or another been able to apply (truthfully and in full reflective honesty) to myself. My \u0026ldquo;bad state\u0026rdquo; is not any low self-esteem resulting from that observation, however. On the contrary, it is precisely the opposite\u0026ndash;I really can\u0026rsquo;t bring myself to want to be any different right now. Different than what? Well, my thoughts and actions are being ruled by desire, anger, passion, arrogance, loneliness, distrust, self-pity, impatience, selfishness, lust, frustration, jealousy, deceit, and fear, and I am enjoying it all too much to want to escape my dark little corner. I feel myself pulling away from my friends and not wanting to talk to them. I feel very poignantly the gulf that separates each of us, but I do not want to call on Christ to bridge that. I am tired of how different I feel from everyone, tired of the loneliness of which I am such a connoisseur, since it so quickly drives me to dwell on my self-inflicted self-image (self-illusion, self-delusion): dark, wrapped in a black cloak, hiding great thoughts and great power that no one else understands or cares to understand, seeing things others don\u0026rsquo;t, too proud to give up my precious individuality and collapse into the sea of mundane personality, of people who can\u0026rsquo;t see beyond their closed eyelids, can\u0026rsquo;t see or hear or smell or taste or feel the beauty that is in the world, the terrible darkness and sorrow that define the noble soul\u0026hellip; This is what I imagine myself becoming, and I love it. I plunge in wholeheartedly and wallow in it, and it is a self-reinforcing cycle, since because no one else follows me to that place, it further illuminates the loneliness which defines the illusion. It is a dark and joyless fantasy which I adopt to become mysterious, to become a mystery which I desperately hope someone will want to solve (yeah, right). I cry out like a child for someone to do that, to come and find me in the storm of my own devising, but no one notices the whirlwind of aloofness ironically designed to attract; to everyone else, I am just like they are (but with flashes of melodrama, which is what this entry will be chalked up to). And so bitterness grows and becomes a palpable wedge and I want to run. I want to run now, away from the mess of misunderstanding and hurt feelings and people that have gone from being my salvation to being my despair. I want to be alone with myself, but then again that\u0026rsquo;s the last thing I want\u0026hellip; I don\u0026rsquo;t know what I want, and this confusion goes right to the core of things and sometimes I am so befuddled with it I want to hurt people just so they will send me away. I want to hurt the people I am supposed to, whom I want to love, so that they push me away so I don\u0026rsquo;t have to love them, because I can\u0026rsquo;t give that. The black-cloaked, high-minded wanderer does not reveal himself in love! No\u0026ndash;he is pursued and uncovered and persuaded to love by someone who has discovered how to do this pursuing and persuading, and then he is able to love. But right now, love cannot escape the cloak\u0026ndash;his unnoticed \u0026ldquo;mystery\u0026rdquo; (plea for attention) suffocates it before it can be free and bring life\u0026hellip;\nIt has been a long time since I have found so much ugliness in myself, and my response is isolation. When I am with people, I am only reminded of lack: they cannot give what I need, and I cannot be what they want\u0026hellip; But when I am with myself, I am only reminded of my own insufficiency. (Oh yeah, God doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem interested in meeting those needs either). For the first time in perhaps ever, I feel hope truly dying. Hope that this community experiment would start me on a path that would remain new and exciting and would change my life forever. Hope that some girl that I want to love me would actually want that too. Hope that there are hidden and beautiful things just waiting to be named. Hope that I would stop writing blog entries in anger against God and just fucking submit. All kinds of hope, draining through the floor as I type. Underneath my cynical exterior, I have always been deeply hopeful. Now, I sit here and stare ahead, and in my deepest of hearts, it really does look dark. I moved to California for the hope of living out faith in a community that I could be myself in without neverending conflict, and for the hope of finding someone to love. A year later, I don\u0026rsquo;t just feel no closer, I feel tricked.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t know whether it is God, the world, or myself, that has done the deceiving, and I don\u0026rsquo;t really care. None of the options make any sense to me. A month ago I was hopeful, and my life was as integrated as it had ever been. Now, I\u0026rsquo;ve never felt any more dis integrated, and despair is in my lungs like water, drowning me. All the things I thought were real and true have been laid bare, deconstructed, and at the bottom of many of them I see my own plans, my own machinations, my own desires, my own subconscious urgings\u0026hellip;and maybe nothing more. I see the same motives of mine that have caused me so much pain in the past being replayed in new contexts, being brought out all of a sudden like a twist in the plot, and I\u0026rsquo;m devastated.\nEnough words. Here is how I feel: I want it to rain for a long time. I want to call it forth and let it run like rivers all over, and I don\u0026rsquo;t want it to stop.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/11/life-love-and-why-2005/","summary":"I\u0026rsquo;m in something of a bad state right now, and I\u0026rsquo;m not sure exactly how I got here or what to do about it. I\u0026rsquo;m not even going to attempt my typical philosophical analysis, partly because of apathy and partly because I\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure it won\u0026rsquo;t help. Instead, I\u0026rsquo;m going to use over-dramatic words to deliver a \u003cem\u003esense\u003c/em\u003e of what I am feeling. You may want to stop reading now.","title":"Life, Love, and Why 2005"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m in Orlando this week for a seminar we\u0026rsquo;re putting on with Alister McGrath as the lecturer. We\u0026rsquo;re filming the whole experience in an insanely-designed soundstage at Disney\u0026rsquo;s MGM studios, and just being in such a cool place every day is pretty fun. The lectures themselves, and more importantly the interaction that I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to have with Alister both on and off camera, have been incredible.\nThe content is basically science, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, theology, and where we can find a healthy and fruitful convergence of these disciplines. Of course, I\u0026rsquo;m all about that, so I\u0026rsquo;m finding myself taking more notes and asking more questions in three days then I did in most whole courses at Stanford.\nBest of all, I was able to convince Nick, Jenna, and Justin to come to Orlando, stay at my house, and attend the seminar as well. We are having great times of hanging out at night, chilling in the hot tub (look, a joke!), cooking, maybe a little beering, whatever. It\u0026rsquo;s meaningful for me to have them here especially today, since it\u0026rsquo;s one year exactly since I took a hindsightedly fateful flight from Orlando to California, and met up with people there for the first time since graduation. This of course spawned that whole series of discussions on faith and community that lasted months, and culminated in my eventual (and gradual) move back to Palo Alto, which was a decidedly big switch in life trajectories. I\u0026rsquo;m still in the middle of the fruits of that decision, but I\u0026rsquo;ve already seen so many wonderful things come of it. I\u0026rsquo;m only hoping for more, though I have no idea what it might or might not look like.\nSo, even though I haven\u0026rsquo;t been getting a lot of sleep due to, ahem, World of Warcraft with my brother, and there\u0026rsquo;s no doubt lots of things I could complain about in various areas of my life, it would be a supreme travesty to feel anything but a profound sense of gratitude at this moment. That gratitude also conveniently enables me to put aside my perennial worries about the future and girls and so on (mostly girls), at least for a while, and it\u0026rsquo;s a welcome relief! I can always pick those worries up again when I get tired of being at peace (which will probably be in about 5 minutes\u0026hellip;never had much luck with the stuff).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/11/faith-and-science/","summary":"I\u0026rsquo;m in Orlando this week for a seminar we\u0026rsquo;re putting on with \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=br_ss_hs/103-6915858-2953435?platform=gurupa\u0026amp;url=index%3Dblended\u0026amp;field-keywords=alister+mcgrath\u0026amp;Go.x=0\u0026amp;Go.y=0\u0026amp;Go=Go\"\u003eAlister McGrath\u003c/a\u003e as the lecturer. We\u0026rsquo;re filming the whole experience in an insanely-designed soundstage at Disney\u0026rsquo;s MGM studios, and just being in such a cool place every day is pretty fun. The lectures themselves, and more importantly the interaction that I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to have with Alister both on and off camera, have been incredible.","title":"Faith and Science"},{"content":"So that I will not be accused of only making lists of heavy and depressing stuff like doubts, here is installment #1 of \u0026ldquo;Things I Like\u0026rdquo;! I have put \u0026ldquo;10-2005\u0026rdquo; in the title, which implies but does not do anything like promise that this will be a monthly series. The list is not supposed to be particularly deep, so please do not feel injured that I do not mention our relationship, or Jesus, or anything like that. But do remember that I spend most of my days coding, and so a lot of this will be my inner nerd coming out. Here is the list, in no particular order:\nSemifreddis cinnamon swirl bread Drinking tea again, since it\u0026rsquo;s cold enough to The Velvet Teen Jimmy Eat World\u0026rsquo;s Stay on My Side Tonight EP Takk Jed\u0026rsquo;s Other Poem Installing Kubuntu and trying to get wireless drivers working Ndiswrapper (see previous item) Jonathan Strange \u0026amp; Mr. Norrell Ruby on Rails Cron + PHP for the win in easy archive/backup \u0026ldquo;tail -f access_log | grep IP\u0026rdquo; for tracking use patterns on this site in real time, and \u0026ldquo;tail -f access_log\u0026rdquo; in general for a good procrastination method The World of Warcraft grind Flaming Dr. Peppers The Palo Alto Moonlight 10k (for complicated reasons having to do with not paying the sign-up fee, I ran as \u0026ldquo;Ryan Frederick\u0026rdquo;, in the 30-39 division, though I am still only 23) Intense ultimate frisbee with friends Dropping temperatures and overcast skies Pad Thai all the time Harry Potter VI out loud with Nyffy (the Chris one) The Firefly Complete Series Arrested Development - Season One favicon.ico Pizza + beer + WoW with my brother at my family\u0026rsquo;s place in San Francisco Uncomfortable honesty A dream in progress Strong community Hope that doesn\u0026rsquo;t die for some reason (OK, I did get a little deep at the end; I couldn\u0026rsquo;t help it!)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/things-i-like-10-2005/","summary":"So that I will not be accused of only making lists of heavy and depressing stuff like doubts, here is installment #1 of \u0026ldquo;Things I Like\u0026rdquo;! I have put \u0026ldquo;10-2005\u0026rdquo; in the title, which implies but does not do anything like promise that this will be a monthly series. The list is not supposed to be particularly deep, so please do not feel injured that I do not mention our relationship, or Jesus, or anything like that. But do remember that I spend most of my days coding, and so a lot of this will be my inner nerd coming out. Here is the list, in no particular order:","title":"Things I Like 10-2005"},{"content":"Last evening from Windy Hill:\nMore Photos\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/and-i-hold-flame-to-my-heart/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast evening from Windy Hill:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/wh_sunset.jpg\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://homepage.mac.com/jlipps/PhotoAlbum8.html\"\u003eMore Photos\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"And I Hold Flame To My Heart"},{"content":"Well, even though I promised I would try and maintain two separate weblogs for two separate purposes, I failed. I guess I just can\u0026rsquo;t handle that much literary self-distintegration.\nI\u0026rsquo;m now pretty much exclusively writing at my teleios weblog, which, although it has less snazzy of a design, was in fact completely coded by me (take that, Movable Type!) and exists in a network of a bunch of other cool people\u0026rsquo;s weblogs. So please make sure to be checking that site as frequently as you used to check this one, or better yet go there and subscribe to the RSS feed, or even better yet sign up and choose to get e-mail notifications when new entries are posted.\nSo for now, farewell from jonathanlipps.com/weblog!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/weblog-betrayal/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, even though I promised I would try and maintain two separate weblogs for two separate purposes, I failed. I guess I just can\u0026rsquo;t handle that much literary self-distintegration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m now pretty much exclusively writing at my \u003ca href=\"http://teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps\"\u003eteleios weblog\u003c/a\u003e, which, although it has less snazzy of a design, was in fact completely coded by me (take that, Movable Type!) and exists in a network of a bunch of other cool people\u0026rsquo;s weblogs. So please make sure to be checking that site as frequently as you used to check this one, or better yet go there and subscribe to the RSS feed, or even better yet sign up and choose to get e-mail notifications when new entries are posted.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Weblog Betrayal"},{"content":"Right now, it frustrates me to have people just assume that I believe, or even to be around people whom I fairly or unfairly believe just assume, the following things:\nAdam did not have an earthly father We know anything at all about the end of the world, or that this world will be physically destroyed We know anything at all about Satan, devils, or angels, or anything at all about how they do or might affect the world or humans There are more than, oh, 5 people in the world who are really Christians Our task in the world is to make more Christians, rather than to become Christians We should pray about anything other than our own inability to mature spiritually We should bow our heads while praying Worship music has some intrinsic value We will be conscious immediately after we die, i.e., there is life immediately after death Heaven is another plane of existence Hell exists, and/or we know anything about it God makes it so that some people do not choose him \u0026ldquo;Christianity\u0026rdquo; means something useful The scriptures are always supposed to be applicable to our daily life We should study the book of Revelation for clues to what the end times will be like The first chapters of Genesis should be taken in any way literally We can regard modern \u0026ldquo;Christianity\u0026rdquo; with any attitude other than cynicism. Religious leaders of today are different from the Pharisees of Jesus\u0026rsquo; day The New Testament tells us something about practical sexual morality We understand the point of spiritual disciplines This or that person is sinful in the eyes of God We must ask Jesus for forgiveness for all the sins we committed since the last time we asked for forgiveness We can improve on the Lord\u0026rsquo;s Prayer God put the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden just to test humanity God \u0026ldquo;knows the future\u0026rdquo; Persecution is necessarily a sign of following Christ The narrow door is wide open We know who is blessed and who is cursed in this life We should be sad that we don\u0026rsquo;t see the miracles of the New Testament nowadays We know what things are of God and what things just happened God audibly speaks to people Spiritual growth can happen consistently in groups of more than 10 people We should agree with some categorization of spiritual gifts God hardens people\u0026rsquo;s hearts Christ came primarily to die on the cross \u0026hellip; and more, if I spent another 10 minutes writing I still believe some of these things, and I even act like I believe some things that I doubt the most strongly. And I\u0026rsquo;m talking about today\u0026rsquo;s doubts\u0026ndash;tomorrow\u0026rsquo;s will be as different as yesterday\u0026rsquo;s were. Moreover, I\u0026rsquo;ll even defend some of those things if I\u0026rsquo;m in an environment where people are deriding them out of hand. But I also feel a great need, in the opposite environment, where it seems people just assume those things, to make my doubts known.\nMost importantly, I don\u0026rsquo;t feel particularly bad that I doubt them. In fact, these doubts are not burning me up with the need to answer any questions. I\u0026rsquo;m quite comfortable remaining exactly here! Of course, it would be nice to know for sure one way or another, and it is likely that I am silly to doubt some things in the list, since they will turn out to be obviously true, but I\u0026rsquo;m tired of hiding the doubt, and tired of people who don\u0026rsquo;t seem to have doubted them in the same way. It feels a bit suffocating and alienating\u0026ndash;I feel the need to go wander alone in the desert.\nIn sum, it is not my doubts that cause me consternation\u0026ndash;they\u0026rsquo;re like old friends\u0026ndash;but rather how to interact with people who do not share them.\nAnyway, for the purposes of providing some small reassurance, I do not seriously doubt, nor have I ever doubted, as far as I can remember, the following things:\nGod exists God created the universe The Trinity is real\u0026ndash;Christ is God incarnate, and the Spirit is God in us Christ shows us the way to life and God (salvation, if you want to call it that) Our hope is in the coming of the Kingdom, which has been happening for a while, but which will happen in a final sense in the future Death is not the end of the story for those with that hope Stripped-down, but real to me.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/things-i-doubt/","summary":"Right now, it frustrates me to have people just assume that I believe, or even to be around people whom I fairly or unfairly believe just assume, the following things:","title":"Things I Doubt"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m in a really awesome spiritual community here in Palo Alto. There aren\u0026rsquo;t that many of us right now, but it\u0026rsquo;s getting sizable enough where sometimes I want to do the following exercise: sit everyone down for an hour, give them 1 piece of paper and a pen, and say, \u0026ldquo;Answer these questions on paper: what are we trying to become, and why, and how do you feel about that?\u0026rdquo;. Then, we each read our \u0026ldquo;papers\u0026rdquo; aloud to the others.\nThere are other ways to ask the question of course\u0026ndash;what is the goal of this community? Why are we doing this? What is it we are doing exactly? Why are we here? But my favorite is still, \u0026ldquo;what are we trying to become, and why?\u0026rdquo;\nMy bet is that people would not all write the same thing, nor would they feel the same about what others wrote. What does that mean? How much should we want to \u0026ldquo;be on the same page\u0026rdquo; (i.e., have unity of vision), what does it take to get there, and what\u0026rsquo;s worth sacrificing for it?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/community-in-1-page-or-less/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m in a really awesome spiritual community here in Palo Alto. There aren\u0026rsquo;t that many of us right now, but it\u0026rsquo;s getting sizable enough where sometimes I want to do the following exercise: sit everyone down for an hour, give them 1 piece of paper and a pen, and say, \u0026ldquo;Answer these questions on paper: what are we trying to become, and why, and how do you feel about that?\u0026rdquo;. Then, we each read our \u0026ldquo;papers\u0026rdquo; aloud to the others.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Community In 1 Page Or Less"},{"content":"This video has been one of my close companions over the last few weeks, reminding me what I love to dream about most. You may have already seen it; if not, an incredible experience awaits!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/gla%C2%B3soli/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://sigur-ros.co.uk/images/screenshot-glosoli.png\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.emichrysalis.co.uk/quicktime/sigur_ros/glosoli/index.php?version=7.020\u0026amp;bandwidth=76800\"\u003eThis video\u003c/a\u003e has been one of my close companions over the last few weeks, reminding me what I love to dream about most. You may have already seen it; if not, an incredible experience awaits!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Glósoli"},{"content":"On a spur of the moment, I went to see the last showing of Serenity tonight at a local theater. I\u0026rsquo;d seen previews for it during Batman Begins, and thought, \u0026ldquo;Oh no, another mediocre sci-fi flick with none-too-great special effects and bad acting.\u0026rdquo; But since it opened a few days ago, I\u0026rsquo;ve been hearing nothing but positive things from people whom I trust to know better, so I thought I\u0026rsquo;d give it a chance.\nMy conclusion, after seeing it, was that it\u0026rsquo;s probably the best sci-fi movie I have seen in the theaters, for as long as I can remember. The problem with sci-fi movies is that they\u0026rsquo;re typically either \u0026ldquo;sci-fi\u0026rdquo;, meaning, not sci-fi in spirit, but set in space, so everyone thinks it\u0026rsquo;s sci-fi, or that they\u0026rsquo;re sci-fi in spirit, but horribly written and acted or produced.\nSo, movies like The Matrix and Star Wars fall into the former category, because they are clearly not in the sci-fi genre, though being set in space and/or a digital reality. (What exactly counts as sci-fi I\u0026rsquo;ll leave for a later blog entry, but if you\u0026rsquo;ve read Dune or pretty much any Asimov, you\u0026rsquo;ll know what I mean).\nSpeaking of Dune, the Sci-Fi Channel\u0026rsquo;s miniseries The Children of Dune is a great example of the second category\u0026ndash;great sci-fi world and story, but poor execution. Granted, it was the best they could do, and after seeing The Village, I retroactively liked William Hurt in The Children of Dune, but in the end that\u0026rsquo;s no excuse.\nSuffice it to say, then, that while the Serenity trailer looked like another Sci-Fi channel blunder, the movie itself was a real joy to watch. The characters, which given the trailer I thought would be overdramatic and overacted, were actually very nuanced and well-done in the movie viewed as a whole. They were, for lack of a better word, believable! That\u0026rsquo;s sci-fi\u0026rsquo;s greatest challenge\u0026ndash;to make a set of believable characters in a barely-believable world. Almost 100% of the time, either the writer or the actor makes some serious mistakes in that task.\nBut anyway, that strength held the movie together and made it something I will definitely want to see again. The effects actually looked worse in the trailer, too\u0026ndash;all clunky old-school CGI. I mean, it was there in the movie as well, but it looks like they picked some of the cheesiest renders for the trailer, and in the movie you didn\u0026rsquo;t really notice it.\nThe cinematography, while not groundbreaking, was just plain interesting. It was never boring, and steered mostly clear of the clichéd action-movie shot sequences.\nLastly, the writing was fun in that the dialect(s) of English being spoken in the movie were subtly different, mixing some archaisms and some neologisms, and some things that I\u0026rsquo;d never heard before. It added to the believability of the story taking place in a post-Earth solar system.\nThe movie also had some morals you could extrapolate about human nature and creation and control, but it didn\u0026rsquo;t beat you over the head with it so neither will I.\nBottom line: if you consider yourself a fan of true sci-fi, you\u0026rsquo;ll love this movie. If you don\u0026rsquo;t, it may be because you\u0026rsquo;ve never actually seen a true sci-fi movie done well, so give it a shot anyhow.\nMan, when did I turn into a movie reviews site. This is weird!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/serenity/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOn a spur of the moment, I went to see the last showing of \u003cem\u003eSerenity\u003c/em\u003e tonight at a local theater. I\u0026rsquo;d seen previews for it during \u003cem\u003eBatman Begins\u003c/em\u003e, and thought, \u0026ldquo;Oh no, another mediocre sci-fi flick with none-too-great special effects and bad acting.\u0026rdquo; But since it opened a few days ago, I\u0026rsquo;ve been hearing nothing but positive things from people whom I trust to know better, so I thought I\u0026rsquo;d give it a chance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy conclusion, after seeing it, was that it\u0026rsquo;s probably the best sci-fi movie I have seen in the theaters, for as long as I can remember. The problem with sci-fi movies is that they\u0026rsquo;re typically either \u0026ldquo;sci-fi\u0026rdquo;, meaning, not sci-fi in spirit, but set in space, so everyone thinks it\u0026rsquo;s sci-fi, or that they\u0026rsquo;re sci-fi in spirit, but horribly written and acted or produced.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Serenity"},{"content":"Well, almost a year after I started, I\u0026rsquo;ve finished the Kierkegaard Anthology which has been fueling my imagination (and my weblog entries) recently. As I look back on the small but important bits I read of his writings, I believe they will have a lasting impact, and be one of the ways in which I remember developing over the past year. The last piece which the editor included was The Unchangeableness of God, a sermon Kierkegaard gave which was published close to the end of his life, somewhat contemporary with his more scalding critiques of Christendom.\nI want to leave you, my good reader who has valiantly suffered through my musings on Kierkegaard, with something he said near the end of the address, and which I think is what Kierkegaard himself would have wanted us to remember maybe more than anything else in his massive corpus:\nImagine a solitary wayfarer, a desert wanderer. Almost burned by the heat of the sun, languishing with thirst, he finds a spring. O refreshing coolness! Now God be praised, he says\u0026ndash;and yet it was merely a spring he found; what then must not he say who found God!\nAnd then:\nBut Thou, O God, who art unchangeable, Thou art always and invariably to be found, and always to be found unchanged. Whether in life or in death, no one journeys so far afield that Thou art not to be found by him, that Thou art not there, Thou who art everywhere. It is not so with the well-springs of the earth, for they are to be found only in special places. And besides\u0026ndash;overwhelming security!\u0026ndash;Thou dost not remain, like the spring, in a single place, but Thou dost follow the traveller on his way. Ah, and no one ever wanders so far astray that he cannot find the way back to Thee, Thou who art not merely as a spring that may be found\u0026ndash;how poor and inadequate a description of what Thou art!\u0026ndash;but rather as a spring that itself seeks out the thirsty traveller, the errant wanderer: who has ever heard the like of any spring! Thus Thou art unchangeably always and everywhere to be found. And whenever any human being comes to Thee, of whatever age, at whatever time of the day, in whatever state: if he comes in sincerity he always finds Thy love equally warm, like the spring\u0026rsquo;s unchanged coolness, O Thou who art unchangeable! Amen!\nAmen, indeed.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/10/farewell-to-kierkegaard-for-now/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, almost a year after I started, I\u0026rsquo;ve finished the \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691019789/qid=1128302298/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-1714661-3099369?v=glance\u0026amp;s=books\u0026amp;n=507846\"\u003eKierkegaard Anthology\u003c/a\u003e which has been fueling my imagination (and my weblog entries) recently. As I look back on the small but important bits I read of his writings, I believe they will have a lasting impact, and be one of the ways in which I remember developing over the past year. The last piece which the editor included was \u003cem\u003eThe Unchangeableness of God\u003c/em\u003e, a sermon Kierkegaard gave which was published close to the end of his life, somewhat contemporary with his more scalding critiques of Christendom.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI want to leave you, my good reader who has valiantly suffered through my musings on Kierkegaard, with something he said near the end of the address, and which I think is what Kierkegaard himself would have wanted us to remember maybe more than anything else in his massive corpus:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eImagine a solitary wayfarer, a desert wanderer. Almost burned by the heat of the sun, languishing with thirst, he finds a spring. O refreshing coolness! Now God be praised, he says\u0026ndash;and yet it was merely a spring he found; what then must not he say who found God!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n","title":"Farewell to Kierkegaard (for now)"},{"content":"What I feel I have been trying to think and articulate the past few days has come to me fully-developed from the mouth of a man who died in the mid-1800s:\n\u0026hellip;We are what is called a \u0026ldquo;Christian\u0026rdquo; nation\u0026ndash;but in such a sense that not a single one of us is in the character of the Christianity of the New Testament, any more than I am, who again and again have repeated, and do now repeat, that I am only a poet. The illusion of a Christian nation is due doubtless to the power which number exercises over the imagination. I have not the least doubt that every single individual in the nation will be honest enough with God and with himself to say in solitary conversation, \u0026ldquo;If I must be candid, I do not deny that I am not a Christian in the New Testament sense; if I must be honest, I do not deny that my life cannot be called an effort in the direction what the New Testament calls Christianity, in the direction of denying myself, renouncing the world, dying from it, etc.; rather the earthly and the temporal become more and more important to me with every year I live.\u0026rdquo; I have not the least doubt that everyone will, with respect to ten of his acquaintances, let us say, be able to hold fast to the view that they are not Christians in the New Testament sense, and that their lives are not even an effort in the direction of becoming so. But when there are 100,000, one becomes confused.\nAnd:\nOr (merely to take one example of what is everywhere present in the New Testament): when Christ requires us to save our life eternally (and that surely is what we propose to attain as Christians) and to hate our own life in this world, is there then a single one among us whose life in the remotest degree could be called even the weakest effort in this direction? And perhaps there are thousands of \u0026ldquo;Christians\u0026rdquo; in the land who are not so much as aware of this requirement. So then we \u0026ldquo;Christians\u0026rdquo; are living, and are loving our life, just in the ordinary human sense. If then by \u0026ldquo;grace\u0026rdquo; God will nevertheless regard us as Christians, one thing at least must be required: that we, being precisely aware of the requirement, have a true conception of how infinitely great is the grace that is shown us. \u0026ldquo;Grace\u0026rdquo; cannot possibly stretch so far, one thing it must never be used for, it must never be used to suppress or to diminish the requirement; for in that case \u0026ldquo;grace\u0026rdquo; would turn Christianity upside down.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/19th-century-denmark-or-21st-century-america/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWhat I feel I have been trying to think and articulate the past few days has come to me fully-developed from the mouth of a man who died in the mid-1800s:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;We are what is called a \u0026ldquo;Christian\u0026rdquo; nation\u0026ndash;but in such a sense that not a single one of us is in the character of the Christianity of the New Testament, any more than I am, who again and again have repeated, and do now repeat, that I am only a poet. The illusion of a Christian nation is due doubtless to the power which number exercises over the imagination. I have not the least doubt that every single individual in the nation will be honest enough with God and with himself to say in solitary conversation, \u0026ldquo;If I must be candid, I do not deny that I am not a Christian in the New Testament sense; if I must be honest, I do not deny that my life cannot be called an effort in the direction what the New Testament calls Christianity, in the direction of denying myself, renouncing the world, dying from it, etc.; rather the earthly and the temporal become more and more important to me with every year I live.\u0026rdquo; I have not the least doubt that everyone will, with respect to ten of his acquaintances, let us say, be able to hold fast to the view that they are not Christians in the New Testament sense, and that their lives are not even an effort in the direction of becoming so. But when there are 100,000, one becomes confused.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd:\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"19th-Century Denmark or 21st-Century America?"},{"content":"After the pretty meaningful birthdays of 18 and 21 (at which points my tobacco- and alcohol-related habits were legalized), I\u0026rsquo;m beginning to realize how much you start to forget about your own birthdays. For instance, mine just snuck up on me. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really thought about it that much, apart from wondering if some people should get together or something; but that\u0026rsquo;s not what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about. More the sense of anticipation, that pre-Christmas excitement that used to attend the days and weeks before a birthday\u0026hellip;that sense was completely and finally gone this year. It\u0026rsquo;s now September 26 and there is no elation, no feeling of the specialness of the day. It\u0026rsquo;s sad, I guess, but part of the whole thing is that I don\u0026rsquo;t really care that it\u0026rsquo;s sad. Last year may have been the same, except we had a hurricane on my birthday so that made things exciting anyhow.\nSo while September 26 is no longer a cause for unbridled joy and wondering if I may have some good presents waiting, it is of course a good excuse to do things like take a midnight shot of sub-30-degree vodka. Mmmm.\nSomewhat randomly and incidentally, yesterday and today were the first days I\u0026rsquo;ve taken any time in the last few years to work on Enaselvai, my constructed language. Many people do not know I have a constructed language, and for their sake, I prefer to keep it that way. I find that people cannot handle this knowledge gracefully. Anyway, things have remained largely static over the last few years, but for some reason I felt emotionally compelled to work on it a bit.\nEveryone knows that artists create art as an emotional/intellectual response to things they are going through. I do this with music quite often, and understandably, as many artists are musicians. I also have this tendency to create linguistic art\u0026ndash;not art with words, but words themselves as art. So cracking open the Enaselvai dictionary and going on a word-creation spree is no doubt my artistic response to something that is happening right now or moving me in some way; not sure what.\nBut anyway I thought I\u0026rsquo;d give you all, hobbit-fashion, a birthday present on this day; a fresh, brand-new sentence in Enaselvai, never before existing! It\u0026rsquo;s always exciting to write these sentences, like fresh tracks in a new linguistic snowfall\u0026hellip;but I\u0026rsquo;ve catalogued this feeling elsewhere.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s actually a translation of a Bible verse, though which one I\u0026rsquo;m not going to say. It\u0026rsquo;s not a particularly meaningful verse anyway, but I wanted a translation project, and I wanted something that I am in some ways or in some senses hoping will characterize the upcoming year for me. Here it is:\nEcó nai le\u0026rsquo;potényue se\u0026rsquo;elódum, lea\u0026rsquo;beréleose, ter vi vánlea berélec io lairévarse.\nKudos to anyone who can guess what verse it is. I followed the Greek syntax pretty nearly, but that\u0026rsquo;s not a very good clue. Also, don\u0026rsquo;t guess out loud.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s a better clue; a veritable Rosetta stone and a marvelously alliterative sentence in Enaselvai\u0026ndash;possibly the first one-line poem in the history of the language!\nVi van vódca.\nWhich of course means, \u0026ldquo;Vodka is good.\u0026rdquo; Slainte!\nIn other news, my theme song has officially changed. For the year following my 22nd birthday, it was the rather in-hindsight-unappropriately-but-hopefully-named \u0026ldquo;Fell In Love At 22\u0026rdquo;, by Starflyer 59. Now, it is the more numeric but more appropriately-named \u0026ldquo;23\u0026rdquo;, from the recent Jimmy Eat World album. I think it\u0026rsquo;s going to be a good theme song, and while there\u0026rsquo;s not quite the optimism in the title, I think I can live with that.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/23/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAfter the pretty meaningful birthdays of 18 and 21 (at which points my tobacco- and alcohol-related habits were legalized), I\u0026rsquo;m beginning to realize how much you start to forget about your own birthdays. For instance, mine just snuck up on me. I hadn\u0026rsquo;t really thought about it that much, apart from wondering if some people should get together or something; but that\u0026rsquo;s not what I\u0026rsquo;m talking about. More the sense of anticipation, that pre-Christmas excitement that used to attend the days and weeks before a birthday\u0026hellip;that sense was completely and finally gone this year. It\u0026rsquo;s now September 26 and there is no elation, no feeling of the specialness of the day. It\u0026rsquo;s sad, I guess, but part of the whole thing is that I don\u0026rsquo;t really care that it\u0026rsquo;s sad. Last year may have been the same, except we had a hurricane on my birthday so that made things exciting anyhow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo while September 26 is no longer a cause for unbridled joy and wondering if I may have some good presents waiting, it is of course a good excuse to do things like take a midnight shot of sub-30-degree vodka. Mmmm.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"23"},{"content":"While more important things are happening in the world of weather these days, I just wanted to note that it is raining and thundering today in Palo Alto. And thundering not just once or twice, but often!\nIn my however many years of being in Palo Alto for the second half of September, it has never rained even once. And for my however many years of going to Stanford, it has thundered at most once a year, always faint and fleeting.\nWhat does this mean? Nothing at all probably, but it is very exciting to let the imagination run wild (in a Day After Tomorrow sense); maybe this global warming thing is actually going to change our climate\u0026hellip; How long can we hack away at our ties to the earth before it comes back to bite us?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/strange-weather-were-having/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWhile more important things are happening in the world of weather these days, I just wanted to note that it is raining and thundering today in Palo Alto. And thundering not just once or twice, but often!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my however many years of being in Palo Alto for the second half of September, it has never rained even once. And for my however many years of going to Stanford, it has thundered at most once a year, always faint and fleeting.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Strange Weather We're Having..."},{"content":"Kierkegaard speaks to my deepest self when he says:\nThe simple man who humbly confesses himself to be a sinner\u0026ndash;himself personally (the individual)\u0026ndash;does not at all need to become aware of all the difficulties which emerge when one is neither simple nor humble. But when this is lacking, this humble consciousness of being personally a sinner (the individual)\u0026ndash;yea, if such a one possessed all human wisdom and shrewdness along with all human talents, it would profit him little. Christianity shall in a degree corresponding to his superiority erect itself against him and transform itself into madness and terror, until he learns either to give up Christianity, or else by the help of what is very far remote from scientific propaedeutic, apologetic, \u0026amp;c., that is, by the help of the torments of a contrite heart (just in proportion to his need of it) learns to enter by the narrow way, through the consciousness of sin, into Christianity.\nA camel passing through the eye of the needle, indeed! It is so clear\u0026ndash;am I not rich in every imaginable way?\nChrist offended the rich young ruler when he told him to sell all his possessions\u0026hellip; Kierkegaard\u0026rsquo;s point is that it was very natural and reasonable for him to be offended while the disciples were not when Christ called them.\nAssuming I am even able to recognize the offense in my case (which is a point in favor of the rich young ruler\u0026ndash;he knew what Christ meant for him), what will I do? Will it be the offense that moves me (\u0026ldquo;Go, sell all your possessions\u0026rdquo;) and sends me away, as it did the young ruler? Or will it be the invitation (\u0026quot;\u0026hellip;and come follow me.\u0026quot;) that moves me and draws me in? It seems that being a Christian just is getting over the offense somehow, having faith in spite of it\u0026ndash;and the richer/wiser we are, the more easily we are offended, therefore the harder it is to have faith.\nFor me, I hope it is the invitation I ultimately embrace, in spite of the offense. But I am realizing I cannot take this process for granted, neither its outcome!\nHere I am, beginning finally to uncover my weakness, to see that I am truly weak; I am in awe of it!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/the-narrow-way/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eKierkegaard speaks to my deepest self when he says:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe simple man who humbly confesses himself to be a sinner\u0026ndash;himself personally (the individual)\u0026ndash;does not at all need to become aware of all the difficulties which emerge when one is neither simple nor humble. But when this is lacking, this humble consciousness of being personally a sinner (the individual)\u0026ndash;yea, if such a one possessed all human wisdom and shrewdness along with all human talents, it would profit him little. Christianity shall in a degree corresponding to his superiority erect itself against him and transform itself into madness and terror, until he learns either to give up Christianity, or else by the help of what is very far remote from scientific propaedeutic, apologetic, \u0026amp;c., that is, by the help of the torments of a contrite heart (just in proportion to \u003cem\u003ehis\u003c/em\u003e need of it) learns to enter by the narrow way, through the consciousness of sin, into Christianity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"The Narrow Way"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s a page from Kierkegaard that really struck me today (which is about every other page, normally\u0026hellip;but this one stands fairly well on its own). It\u0026rsquo;s from Training in Christianity, and it\u0026rsquo;s section f, entitled, \u0026ldquo;The misfortune of Christendom\u0026rdquo;.\nBut this precisely is now the misfortune of Christendom, as for many, many years it has been, that Christ is neither the one thing or the other, neither what He was when He lived on earth, nor what (as is believed) He shall be at His return, but one about whom in an illicit way, through history, people have learned to know something to the effect that He was somebody or another of considerable consequence. In an unpermissible and unlawful way people have become knowing about Christ, for the only permissible way is to be believing. People have mutually confirmed one another in the notion that by the aid of the upshot [effects] of Christ\u0026rsquo;s life and the 1,800 years (the consequences) they have become acquainted with the answer to the problem. By degrees, as this came to be accounted wisom, all pith and vigor was distilled out of Christianity; the tension of the paradox was relaxed, one became a Christian without noticing it, and without in the least noticing the possibility of offense. One took possession of Christ\u0026rsquo;s doctrine, turned it about and pared it down, while He of course remained surety for its truth, He whose life had such stupendous results in history. All became as simple as thrusting a foot into the stocking. And quite naturally, because in that way Christianity became paganism. In Christianity there is perpetual Sunday twaddle about Christianity\u0026rsquo;s glorious and pricelss truths, its sweet consolation; but it is only too evident that Christ lived 1,800 years ago. The Sign of Offense and the object of Faith has become the most romantic of all fabulous figures, a divine Uncle George. One does not know what it is to be offended, still less what it is to worship. What one especially praises in Christ is precisely what one would be most embittered by if one were contemporary with it, whereas now one is quite secure in reliance upon the upshot; and in reliance upon this proof from history, that He quite certainly was the great one, one draws the conclusion: Ergo that was the right thing. This is to say, That is the right, the noble, the sublime, the true thing, if it was He that did it; this is the same as to say that one does not trouble oneself to learn to know in a deeper sense what it was He did, still less to try, according to one\u0026rsquo;s slender ability, by God\u0026rsquo;s help to imitate Him in doing the thing that is right and noble and sublime and true. For what that is one does not apprehend and may therefore in the situation of today form a judgment diametrically opposite to the truth. One is content to admire and praise, and may be (as was said of a scrupulous translator who rendered an author word for word and therefore made no meaning) \u0026ldquo;too conscientious,\u0026rdquo; perhaps also too cowardly and too feeble of heart really to wish to understand.\nChristendom has done away with Christianity, without being quite aware of it. The consequence is that, if anything is to be done, one must try again to introduce Christianity into Christendom.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/the-misfortune-of-christendom/","summary":"Here\u0026rsquo;s a page from Kierkegaard that really struck me today (which is about every other page, normally\u0026hellip;but this one stands fairly well on its own). It\u0026rsquo;s from \u003cem\u003eTraining in Christianity\u003c/em\u003e, and it\u0026rsquo;s section \u003cem\u003ef\u003c/em\u003e, entitled, \u0026ldquo;The misfortune of Christendom\u0026rdquo;.","title":"The Misfortune of Christendom"},{"content":"I have been looking for love (and lamenting my lack of it, in terms of the females) so intensely recently, that in a superbly dismaying irony, I have actually been un loving those around me [yes, that was a transitive verb]. I have been withdrawn, aloof, sarcastic, ungentle, and careless in my interactions with my community, and I was so wrapped up in myself, so enjoying my melancholy depression, that I didn\u0026rsquo;t even notice until someone called me out on it last night.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel good to realize that you have been treating people with less than the fullest of respect; and it feels even worse to not know how to go about changing, or whether you even want to. Christ help me.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/losing-love/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI have been looking for love (and lamenting my lack of it, in terms of the females) so intensely recently, that in a superbly dismaying irony, I have actually been \u003cem\u003eun\u003c/em\u003e loving those around me [yes, that was a transitive verb]. I have been withdrawn, aloof, sarcastic, ungentle, and careless in my interactions with my community, and I was so wrapped up in myself, so enjoying my melancholy depression, that I didn\u0026rsquo;t even notice until someone called me out on it last night.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Losing Love"},{"content":"The question is not:\nDo you think what I think?\nDo you see what I see?\nDo you know what I know?\nDo you like what I like?\nDo you believe what I believe?\nThe question is:\nWhen you hear this song, do you feel what I feel?\n\u0026hellip;\nAnd my fear is that the answer is always no. That is what I mean by loneliness.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/when-you-hear-this-song/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe question is not:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDo you think what I think?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDo you see what I see?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDo you know what I know?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDo you like what I like?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDo you believe what I believe?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe question is:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen you hear this song, do you feel what I feel?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd my fear is that the answer is always no. \u003cem\u003eThat\u003c/em\u003e is what I mean by loneliness.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"When You Hear This Song"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m happy to announce the result of an insane weekend of creative coding/design with my roommate Justin: Podornot.com.\nPodornot is a fun mash-up of the new podcasting trend (internet buzz, anyone?) and the old Internet time-wasting stand-by, Hot or not.\nThe idea is to generate a random audio experience; you never know what you\u0026rsquo;re going to get! But as you go through, you can rate the podcasts you hear, and maybe someday we will use this information to create lists of the hottest podcasts on the web. So go to the site and check it out!\nGraphic/visual design right now done by me and Justin, hopefully to be improved in the near future.\nAnyway, it\u0026rsquo;s fun to have an idea, to implement it rapidly, and to see it pretty much near completion in a short amount of time. Go visit!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/podornotcom/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m happy to announce the result of an insane weekend of creative coding/design with my roommate Justin: \u003ca href=\"http://podornot.com\"\u003ePodornot.com\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePodornot is a fun mash-up of the new podcasting trend (internet buzz, anyone?) and the old Internet time-wasting stand-by, Hot or not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea is to generate a random audio experience; you never know what you\u0026rsquo;re going to get! But as you go through, you can rate the podcasts you hear, and maybe someday we will use this information to create lists of the hottest podcasts on the web. So go to the site and check it out!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Podornot.com"},{"content":"Since I work in California and most of Teleios is in Florida, there is a 3-hour time difference which would ostensibly cause some problems in synchronizing workdays.\nRecently I\u0026rsquo;ve taken to a strategy which has been used, to great effect, by almost every software giant in existence. This strategy doesn\u0026rsquo;t so much solve the workday synchronization problem (as getting up at 4:30 am would, for example), but instead says that, actually, desynchronization is the solution! Namely: around-the-clock development.\nThis is how it works:\nAt 6am Eastern, Joe and Pavi get to work at Teleios headquarters. They put in a good 8 hours of work, writing new code and testing code that I\u0026rsquo;ve written previously. In the course of this writing and testing, they come up with a number of bugs having to do with my web app or with the integration process.\nThen, around 12pm Pacific, I stumble out of bed and wander bleary-eyed in my underwear to my computer downstairs, where I check my e-mail and immediately wish I hadn\u0026rsquo;t. I\u0026rsquo;m greeted by the results of Teleios\u0026rsquo; hard labor the previous day (well, it\u0026rsquo;s the same calendar day, but I got up so late it\u0026rsquo;s effectively after their work day), namely a huge list of bugs for me to squash.\nSo I spend a good 4-5 hours fixing bugs and wondering when it was that I wrote that particular line of code and was I on drugs at the time? About then it\u0026rsquo;s dinner time, so I\u0026rsquo;ll do that and hang out with people, play sports or games or talk or whatever. Then around 10pm-12am, I\u0026rsquo;ll put in another few hours of work, and this is when I code new features, since all the previous part of the day has been spent on fixing old ones.\nSometimes I\u0026rsquo;ll code (like I did a few days ago) to 3am, which is just about when Joe and Pavi are getting into the office in Florida. Now it\u0026rsquo;s their turn to be greeted by a bunch of new code which may or may not play nice with their own respective pieces of software!\nIn this way the proverbial sun never sets on the Teleios workday.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/around-the-clock-development/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSince I work in California and most of Teleios is in Florida, there is a 3-hour time difference which would ostensibly cause some problems in synchronizing workdays.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecently I\u0026rsquo;ve taken to a strategy which has been used, to great effect, by almost every software giant in existence. This strategy doesn\u0026rsquo;t so much solve the workday synchronization problem (as getting up at 4:30 am would, for example), but instead says that, actually, desynchronization is the solution! Namely: around-the-clock development.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Around-the-clock Development"},{"content":"Uberness is mine! I finally got cheetah form for my druid:\nRawr!\n(Can I just say I love that Wikipedia is also a World of Warcraft strategy guide?)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/level-30/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eUberness is mine! I finally got \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid_(World_of_Warcraft)\"\u003echeetah form\u003c/a\u003e for my druid:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://jonathanlipps.com/img/wow1.png\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRawr!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e(Can I just say I love that Wikipedia is also a World of Warcraft strategy guide?)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Level 30"},{"content":"My whole family was in Orlando for part of this week, so we decided to hold a birthday celebration for my sister, my brother, and myself (our birthdays are all fairly close). This year, my mom organized a trip to Orlando\u0026rsquo;s Cirque Du Soleil production, La Nouba.\nIt was the first time I\u0026rsquo;d been to one of these events, and needless to say I was shocked by the high price of the tickets. I realized halfway through, however, that I was watching one of the finest performances I\u0026rsquo;d ever seen, anywhere. The physical training and prowess displayed easily surpassed any other show of ability I\u0026rsquo;d seen, whether in sports or arts, and the live music must have been played by some of the best musicians in entertainment.\nThe show was also particularly interesting for me because it was one of those things where there\u0026rsquo;s always something going on. There was always someone or other dancing or doing something clever in the background, or flying across the upper parts of the auditorium on a wire, or whatever.\nAs a rule, I\u0026rsquo;m hyper-aware, so it was a feast for that hyper-awareness to always have things to notice. Every time I saw something I wasn\u0026rsquo;t intended to see because my attention was supposed to be focused on the main act, I got excited and leaned over and told David, who probably didn\u0026rsquo;t care. I\u0026rsquo;m just talking about times when the cast would surreptitiously clip a safety carabiner to a hidden harness on their way to a dangerous move, or when the electric violinist you could barely see, hidden behind several layers of columns, was really rocking out. I loved all this background stuff.\nBut, having been thinking a lot about community and spiritual things lately, I was surprised to also have several somewhat awesome realizations whilst watching this display of artistic excellence, relating to the spiritual life lived in community. I remember having 3 or 4 of these realizations, but all that I can recall now are two:\n1. Unity is awe-inspiring. There were a number of times throughout the performance where a group of performers would be doing something incredible on their own, for example rolling around in these huge circular wire cages, or playing with this insane chinese yo-yo thing (I know, I need video clips). Anyway, it was amazing, and the crowd burst into applause.\nThen, these groups of performers would do something even more complicated, namely performing with their respective props, but synchronously. That is, their actions and motions interplayed with the actions and motions of another, forming this intricate dance whilst maintaining an impossible individual routine. And of course, the crowd bursts into applause.\nBut then, the best thing of all would happen\u0026ndash;two of the performers would actually pretend to be one person! In other words, say there were two girls doing tricks with this chinese yo-yo thing, which requires both hands to manipulate in all these incredible and impossible ways. Well, they would get together and share the same prop, using the right arm from the rightmost girl, and the left arm from the left, to act as one performer.\nThis subtly blew my mind away\u0026hellip;the level of focus and control to do what they were doing seemed to require having one mind. It was insane how their hands could move as if they were receiving instantaneous instructions from one source. So now, the crowd goes the most wild, because they unconsciously realize this point\u0026ndash;being that on-the-same-page with another human being is truly awe-inspiring.\nThe spiritual lesson: it is the same with our community relationships! If we do things with a unity like that the Cirque cast has achieved physically, then the crowd (read: outside world) will involuntarily shout out in applause, because it is delightful and amazing.\n2. Discipline brings freedom. At one point during the show, a well-muscled, gymnast-looking man grabbed hold of two narrow red curtains which had dropped from the ceiling, took a short run, and then jumped. He proceeded to soar, arms back and back arched like gliding bird, in a huge arc toward the sky. With the fluttering of the sheets around him and the fact that his body was kept perfectly still, he appeared to serenely lift. In truth, it looked less like the curtains were pulling him upward, and more like his body was actually propelling them with its own power of flight.\nThe lie was given when the next act took center stage, and I glimpsed this man in the shadows, stomach heaving with the exertion he hadn\u0026rsquo;t shown during his routine. It had looked like nothing special for him to iron-cross through the air without even solid rings, but in fact it was hard even for this burly guy. It would have been strictly impossible, of course, for anyone in the audience.\nBut he had trained his body to such an extent that, with every muscle in it straining, it looked like flying was completely natural to him. This training came at a certain cost\u0026ndash;daily discipline. No doubt he had some latent physical ability from birth, but without the discipline he would have been like the fat guy they picked for the mountain biker to jump over earlier in the show.\nI\u0026rsquo;m imagining that, in none of his practice sessions, whether it was lifting weights or running or doing scores of pull-ups, did he ever feel like he was flying. To the contrary, his body probably never felt more tied to the earth than when he was bench-pressing something insane. But twice a night (or however often), he gets on stage and flies like a bird, with a smile on his face, and in the freedom that discipline brings.\nThe spiritual lesson: spiritual disciplines will probably not feel very illuminating or liberating. In fact, they may feel very much like chains. More importantly, they are not instant pathways to anything or at all related to my desire for the end state they bring, in the same way that, even if I wanted to be like this flying Cirque du Soleil entertainer, it would take me years at least to be physically able\u0026hellip;who knows, it might even be impossible, given that I have been set in certain physical ways for so many years!\nBut in the end, after years of hardship and training, spiritual disciplines will pay out in the most unimaginable of ways\u0026ndash;the ability to truly fly, spiritually. And if and when I do, those around will greet it with awe, believing that this is some supernatural power being shown, when in reality it is simply what happens naturally in a life that is oriented in a certain direction. It is a genuine natural miracle\u0026ndash;natural because built into the fabric of life, and miraculous because it is the work that God desires to do in us.\nWell, between these two things, I think there is a lot to ponder. The most excitement comes, in particular, with thinking about the integration of these two lessons\u0026ndash;can you imagine a spiritually unified, disciplined group of individuals? I would like to see it; I would like to be it. It would be so amazing, just like the performance that moved me last night.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/lessons-from-cirque-du-soleil/","summary":"My whole family was in Orlando for part of this week, so we decided to hold a birthday celebration for my sister, my brother, and myself (our birthdays are all fairly close). This year, my mom organized a trip to Orlando\u0026rsquo;s Cirque Du Soleil production, \u003cem\u003eLa Nouba\u003c/em\u003e.","title":"Lessons from Cirque du Soleil"},{"content":"Well I made it back safe from Costa Rica, and you can check out some pictures here. Not the best pictures admittedly but there they are.\nIn truth I don\u0026rsquo;t feel like giving my usual play-by-play of an international trip, but shall instead point you to my other weblog, where I wrote about my feelings upon arrival back in the States. That entry is here.\nWait\u0026hellip;I have another weblog?? Yes, I do! I am happy to announce that the web application I have been developing for almost a year at work is finally going live (beta, of course). I think it\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool, and it has a weblog system I wrote from scratch, so I\u0026rsquo;ve been writing entries in it for a while now to test it out. My weblog is here, and you can get to the main page here: e4:online.\nThere\u0026rsquo;s a bit of a description there of what the site is for, so feel free to sign up and play around with it!\nI decided that my e4:online weblog will be where I write most things of some interest to people who don\u0026rsquo;t care about my deep personal issues, or whatever it is I\u0026rsquo;ve been writing about here. I\u0026rsquo;ll continue to keep this weblog for both those things.\nSorry to go double-weblog on you, but I\u0026rsquo;m sure you can handle it, and if not\u0026hellip;use bloglines and subscribe to the RSS feed for this weblog and the Teleios one. Cheers!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/09/back-from-costa-rica-teleios-weblogs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell I made it back safe from Costa Rica, and you can check out some pictures \u003ca href=\"http://homepage.mac.com/jlipps/PhotoAlbum6.html\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e. Not the best pictures admittedly but there they are.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn truth I don\u0026rsquo;t feel like giving my usual play-by-play of an international trip, but shall instead point you to my other weblog, where I wrote about my feelings upon arrival back in the States. That entry is \u003ca href=\"http://teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/32\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWait\u0026hellip;I have another weblog?? Yes, I do! I am happy to announce that the web application I have been developing for almost a year at work is finally going live (beta, of course). I think it\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool, and it has a weblog system I wrote from scratch, so I\u0026rsquo;ve been writing entries in it for a while now to test it out. My weblog is \u003ca href=\"http://teleios.us/weblogs/jlipps/\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e, and you can get to the main page here: \u003ca href=\"http://teleios.us\"\u003ee4:online\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Back from Costa Rica / Teleios Weblogs"},{"content":"I was thinking with Pavi and Kennedy this morning about doubt. Pavi brought up the question of, what are the real foundations / reasons / motivations for doubt? The question came out of a realization we shared, which was that, as much as we interact with atheistic philosophers and scientists and hear all these reasons that God does not exist or religion is a purely social construction or whatever, we\u0026rsquo;ve never really felt convinced by these things.\nIt goes beyond the intellect\u0026ndash;sure, I may struggle with some arguments for a period of time and then come to some conclusion on them, but they have never felt convincing.\nSo we were talking about where these feelings come from, and Pavi brought up a framework centered around authority, to explain our epistemological attitudes. Essentially, we filter all knowledge and beliefs to certain degrees through various authorities. There are internal authorities, such as reason and experience, and external ones, such as books, people, groups, schools, etc\u0026hellip; (We could narrow these down to several fundamental authorities if we were interested).\nWhen it comes down to it, of course, there is no authority, internal or external, which is 100% self-sworn. That is, we can always question any authority to some degree, even our own internal authorities of reason or experience, because we can always wonder whether (a) the deliverances of reason are certainly true, and (b) a certain experience we had was even real.\nSo it\u0026rsquo;s basically the same Cartesian doubt cashed out in terms of authority. And, depending on who we are, we may trust these authorities more or less than other people. There\u0026rsquo;s really no objective psychological explanation for this, but the one we came up with is simply analogous to personal trust: if you believe an authority, and it \u0026ldquo;lets you down\u0026rdquo; (ruins your life somehow, like an oppressive Catholic school headmaster might), you will begin to distrust that authority.\nThat, ultimately, is what we decided doubt is. Philosophically speaking, doubt and faith can be very easy to define: set a level of certitude (willingness to assent to a certain proposition), and say that if you hold to that proposition more than that certitude level, you have faith in it, otherwise you doubt it. Quick, clean, easy\u0026ndash;only uninteresting. We have simply defined doubt as unbelief and faith as belief. But just as I think faith is much closer to the concept of trust than the concept of belief, so I now think that doubt is much closer to the concept of distrust than the concept of unbelief.\nThis actually has some pretty large ramifications because, if it is right, most people don\u0026rsquo;t doubt God\u0026rsquo;s goodness because they disbelieve he exists, or anything of the sort; rather, because at some point in their lives, something has happened to make them distrust this God or this idea of God, whether it was an unthinking fundamentalist pastor or parents who were oppressive, or maybe an overall death of the trust faculty due to something unrelated to God\u0026ndash;a father walking out, or whatever.\nI like this theory because it seems to explain well the way people actually interact with issues of faith. And certainly I don\u0026rsquo;t want to recommend trusting just any authority, for instance ones that tell you pink unicorns are dancing on the roof But it does put atheistic and theistic types on more of a level footing, since in the end it turns out atheists are just trusting different authorities than theists. And certainly some authorities are better than others (I think), but the question becomes how you determine this.\nI like it because it nicely steps away from the purely intellectual debate where not much interesting happens anyway, but asks a question which needs to be answered even before the debate, which is \u0026ldquo;who do you trust?\u0026rdquo; Who do you trust, and why? Some might trust God and some might trust science (i.e., scientists) and some might trust culture and some might try their best to trust no one (or themselves), and when that is on the table the proper debate can begin, over who/what is actually worthy (or not) of this trust.\nKeep in mind that it is a very individual discussion, since trust is a relationship between individuals and other individuals, and so the discussion is less likely to get sidetracked away from the people who are in it.\nWell, a lot more thinking needs to be done here, but this idea of doubt being actually a very different kind of thing than mere skepticism, and faith being very different from mere belief, is a fruitful one, I think.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/08/doubt-and-trust/","summary":"I was thinking with Pavi and Kennedy this morning about doubt. Pavi brought up the question of, what are the real foundations / reasons / motivations for doubt? The question came out of a realization we shared, which was that, as much as we interact with atheistic philosophers and scientists and hear all these reasons that God does not exist or religion is a purely social construction or whatever, we\u0026rsquo;ve never really felt convinced by these things.","title":"Doubt and Trust"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m experiencing a general sense of depression as normal life here in the states is starting to re-encroach on my soul. Our little community/house church retreat to Costa Rica was challenging and satisfying in so many deep ways it is sad to see it end.\nWe spent hours each day getting to know each other more and learning of our deepest-rooted fears and hopes and scars, in the context of a real adventure where we forded rivers with 4x4s and got stuck in potholes multiple feet deep.\nWe were able to find our own little place on the Guanacaste coast and stay there for 5 days, having practically our own private beach to surf and play in. Each night we were treated to the best and most authentic Italian food we have ever had, prepared by a talented chef solely for our group (including fresh, hand-made pasta) and served by an impishly delightful old Italian woman, world traveler and former NYC dancer.\nWe were able to sink into a rhythm for a few days that did not consist only of work and sleep, but something more real as we felt the freedom to engage in each other\u0026rsquo;s lives without worrying what else we had to do.\nIn truth, we fell in love with Costa Rica, with its country motto, its country beer, its country liquor\u0026hellip; But more importantly the people and the way of life we saw, which while so much more crude in some senses than life here in the US, was so much more beautifully simple. There were many dreaming discussions about moving down there, starting a school for local children (including ours eventually), teaching in a new and more profoundly spiritual way, building homes without cutting down trees, and developing without destroying the essence of the place (which destruction we saw beginning to happen with American-owned resorts popping up along the coast). Big dreams and big ideas, from the philosophy of education to housing development!\u0026ndash;see, the kingdom knows no boundaries.\nAnd lastly, we talked long and hard about how we could maintain some of the practices we engaged in upon returning to our Silicon Valley locale. We are very hopeful that our experience will help kickstart a new, more vibrant, and more prophetic way of life here. But honestly, now that we are back, I think we are all a little overwhelmed at the difficulty of that task. The first thing I did when coming home was to check the absurd amount of e-mail I received, and it reminded me of all the subtle ways in which our culture literally oppresses us and makes true community, true life, nearly impossible at times.\nIf we can figure out how to maintain our spiritual order here, though\u0026hellip; if we can do that\u0026ndash;I believe it will be one of the most powerful and miraculous things that can happen. And that is our hope.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/08/back-in-the-us/","summary":"I\u0026rsquo;m experiencing a general sense of depression as normal life here in the states is starting to re-encroach on my soul. Our little community/house church retreat to Costa Rica was challenging and satisfying in so many deep ways it is sad to see it end.","title":"Back in the US"},{"content":"Well, who would have guessed! My hotel here in Costa Rica has internet access! I made it here without mishap, though one of my friend\u0026rsquo;s flights was cancelled.\nJust wanted to drop a line and say hello\u0026ndash;hope you folks get along well without me while I\u0026rsquo;m gone. Doubt I\u0026rsquo;ll have internet outside of San Jose here\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;re going to some remote (and awesome) hot springs and beaches starting tomorrow.\nSo far Costa Rica is a cool place\u0026ndash;very Centroamericano, and the country saying is\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;Pura Vida\u0026rdquo;. I love it.\nSee you guys in some days! (I forget how many)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/08/costa-rica/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, who would have guessed! My hotel here in Costa Rica has internet access! I made it here without mishap, though one of my friend\u0026rsquo;s flights was cancelled.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust wanted to drop a line and say hello\u0026ndash;hope you folks get along well without me while I\u0026rsquo;m gone. Doubt I\u0026rsquo;ll have internet outside of San Jose here\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;re going to some remote (and awesome) hot springs and beaches starting tomorrow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo far Costa Rica is a cool place\u0026ndash;very Centroamericano, and the country saying is\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;Pura Vida\u0026rdquo;. I love it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Costa Rica"},{"content":"Well, in 5 hours of packing and maybe even some sleeping, I\u0026rsquo;ll be on my way to Costa Rica for 12 days with 9 of my closest friends for a bit of a retreat. We\u0026rsquo;re not really sure what will happen, and I won\u0026rsquo;t be in phone or e-mail contact (which will be, of course, sweet).\nAssuming we survive and make it back OK, I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;ll be posting stories and pictures here!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/08/heading-to-costa-rica/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWell, in 5 hours of packing and maybe even some sleeping, I\u0026rsquo;ll be on my way to Costa Rica for 12 days with 9 of my closest friends for a bit of a retreat. We\u0026rsquo;re not really sure what will happen, and I won\u0026rsquo;t be in phone or e-mail contact (which will be, of course, sweet).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAssuming we survive and make it back OK, I\u0026rsquo;m sure I\u0026rsquo;ll be posting stories and pictures here!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Heading to Costa Rica"},{"content":"Don\u0026rsquo;t ask me how, but I recently received an as-yet-unreleased album of music from a very cool Icelandic band.\nIf you know who I am talking about, good for you, and get excited for the official release! It is definitely going to be one of the most amazing albums of the year.\nAnyway, I just mention it because I listened to the album nonstop on repeat yesterday (imagine that I will today as well), and it is a perfect and moving example of the glorious beauty which, for me, causes sadness and even pain.\nUnfortunately I don\u0026rsquo;t dare betraying trust by posting an audio sample; you\u0026rsquo;ll have to wait!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/08/s-r/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eDon\u0026rsquo;t ask me how, but I recently received an as-yet-unreleased album of music from a very cool Icelandic band.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you know who I am talking about, good for you, and get excited for the official release! It is definitely going to be one of the most amazing albums of the year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnyway, I just mention it because I listened to the album nonstop on repeat yesterday (imagine that I will today as well), and it is a perfect and moving example of the glorious beauty which, for me, \u003ca href=\"/2005/08/my-defining-sadnesses/\"\u003ecauses sadness\u003c/a\u003e and even pain.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"\"S-R\""},{"content":"I am, on a relatively frequent basis, sad. It is not typically the result of anything in particular that has happened to me or anyone I know\u0026ndash;anything bad, that is. Nor is it (as far as I can tell) because I am depressed or anything like that. On the contrary, in my life right now there is such an undercurrent of joy (and, though not related, an absence of real hardship) that I am certainly neither unhappy (unfortunate) nor depressed. The feeling or emotion I am describing is maybe then not best named \u0026ldquo;sadness\u0026rdquo;. But in any case, I\u0026rsquo;ll say what it is like, and you can call it what you will (it just occurred to me to call it \u0026ldquo;nostalgia\u0026rdquo;, and that is a pretty good capture except for the connotation of remembering things being involved).\nBasically, there are times when I feel that my heart gets so heavy, so full (don\u0026rsquo;t think of these things as contradictory), that I am unable to contain any more of what it is full with, and it has to be released in the form of some emotion. For me the appropriate emotion has always seemed to be sadness, or whatever you call it when tears come. So on the outside, it looks as if I am sad about something, when really the case is that the sadness is just my involuntary response to the depth, or the power, or the reality, or (especially) the beauty of whatever it is that I am thinking about or looking at or pondering. I suppose that for others, the emotional response might be different. Maybe it is excitement, or maybe it is frustration. For me, it is sadness (i.e., the appearance of it).\nI noticed recently that there are really only a few things which make me feel this way. Themes, I guess you could call them, and they recur with frequency. I rarely come upon them immediately or intentionally, but typically after pondering or considering something unrelated. Oftentimes I\u0026rsquo;ll be reading a book and realize that I\u0026rsquo;ve been skimming for a few paragraphs, not really comprehending any words, and suddenly my heart is off on one of these themes. At that point I\u0026rsquo;m effectively paralyzed\u0026ndash;I have to sit and soak in the experience whether I like it or not, or find it convenient or not. If it happens when I\u0026rsquo;m around people, I become irritable. Most often, though, it is the result of music. Since this ties into one of the themes itself, I\u0026rsquo;ll handle the explanation for that later.\nSo, what are these themes? After a little while\u0026rsquo;s reflection, I believe there are 4 main ones, but, as you will see, they are all really connected. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what the nature of the connection is; is it hierarchical or is it a flat network? I don\u0026rsquo;t know. But here they are, my defining sadnesses:\nNot having found my one female companion\nDon\u0026rsquo;t laugh\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s true, and it is the theme that has been most in my mind recently (of the four), and I\u0026rsquo;ll probably write most about it here. Now, remember what I said earlier, I am not sad in the unfortunate/unhappy sense when I think about my singleness. Rather, I believe that I am having an entirely fruitful life experience, and especially in my human relationships, what with the incredible family and friends that constantly surround me. No, the sense is somewhat more general, almost unrelated to my life per se.\nThere is something deep within me that resonates with the concept of a pair of separate yet unified human beings, essentially different in their masculinity and femininity, but pulled together in an ever-deepening dance which traces out the steps of love. I also resonate, as you might have guessed, with Lewis\u0026rsquo; imaginative and deeply true and free account of gender in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.\nYou mustn\u0026rsquo;t think as a result of that that I hold to any particular way that male and female are or should be related, whether that pertains to spiritual authority or social roles or even whether it is good to marry in the first place. I especially wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want you to think that I believe this sense I have is necessarily found in every human. No, I can sidestep all those issues; I can even sidestep that fearful Christian question of whether I am supposed to be celibate! I do that because I\u0026rsquo;m not talking about here about what I think I should do or what I think is good for me or anything like that. Rather, I am describing a part of myself which is core enough to be defining, and that part wholeheartedly embraces the idea of male/female love elucidating God\u0026rsquo;s love. \u0026ldquo;It is not good for man to be alone,\u0026rdquo; just like, apparently, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t good for God to be alone.\nI have had these ideas and desires for that kind of love as long as I can remember. Maybe it was the fact that since before I was born my parents were exhibiting it. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s the books I read. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s the fantastical nature of those books, with their fairy-tale romances and their insistence that (despite what you might think), love beats out magic any day. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s because I learned early on that I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do, in terms of my abilities, but that all of those things had to do with me. Love requires another person, and to make it good love with that person requires more than brains or physical ability\u0026hellip;it requires the heart of Christ.\nMy relationships, while being mostly disastrous from a certain perspective (and mostly awesome from others, of course)\u0026ndash;the perspective of my own maturity (i.e., lack of it)\u0026ndash;merely whet my appetite for a healthy and lasting relationship.\nAnyway, the point is that after many years, I have decided that the bare fact is that I am made for love. I could be wrong about that, but if I am, it will be a long and painful road to that discovery (so I\u0026rsquo;m hoping I\u0026rsquo;m not wrong). In other words, there is a very real sense in which, while I feel completely satisfied in every part of my life, and can\u0026rsquo;t even think of any real practical benefits to being in a serious relationship at the moment, incompleteness lingers. It is always there in the back of my mind, gently pressuring. I have often mistaken this pressure, which is really just a reflection of my deepest personality in believing it is made for love, for attraction (attraction as including but not limited to physical desire)\u0026hellip;which has left me in the embarrassing position several times of realizing that I\u0026rsquo;m not actually attracted to so-and-so, even though I\u0026rsquo;ve been telling her this!\nFortunately for me, every other time or so, things \u0026ldquo;don\u0026rsquo;t work out\u0026rdquo; before I come to that realization, and I am spared hurting someone horribly. Still, I myself feel duped (by myself) when I gain enough clarity to realize I was going after someone specific, not for any specific motivations, but because of this general push of my heart, when what (I decided) really warrants a pursuit is a specific push, if that makes sense. I don\u0026rsquo;t know that I\u0026rsquo;ve ever felt one of these, but now I\u0026rsquo;m hoping I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to recognize it.\nSo I ponder this often, and the deep roots into my heart the theme has often led me to this melancholic sadness I\u0026rsquo;m describing (which is all the more poignant when I don\u0026rsquo;t have any pursuits, like right now).\nNot being able to learn all the world\u0026rsquo;s languages\nI just realized this is one of my defining sadnesses this weekend. I was sitting at my desk, working or something, when I glanced up at my bookshelf. As I scanned it I noticed all my \u0026ldquo;teach-yourself\u0026rdquo; language books, or grammar references, or whatever, of which I have over 20. My eyes moved from Old English to Welsh to German to Japanese to Hindi to Thai to Portuguese to Latin to Greek to Spanish, and at each stop I felt a slight twinge of, believe it or not, emotional pain.\nMaybe it came from remembering the times at which I bought each of those books. I was probably standing in a bookstore in the language section, dreaming of how awesome it would be to know such-and-such a language. I probably picked up the book, flipped through it, thought how easy it would be to read it and work through it in the course of a few months if I just dedicated some time to it, and then dreamed some more about being in a foreign land where I could cut through the foreignness with mutual communication, which means of course mutual educating and inspiring.\nBut life and responsibilities turned my plans to nothing, and now I sit years later looking at each of these books as a dream that has more or less died. Inevitably, though, the spark of excitement comes back, and I once again slip into my dream world of being able to communicate with everybody. Although, communication per se isn\u0026rsquo;t exactly what I seem to want; Hitchhiker\u0026rsquo;s Guide to the Galaxy\u0026rsquo;s babelfish doesn\u0026rsquo;t attract me, because it is cheating. Part of being able to communicate with someone is having gone through the process of learning their language, learning the proper context for that communication.\nAnyway, the excitement is the pathway to sadness because I know that there is just not enough time in my life to learn even 10 languages, let alone 6,000, let alone the one that I\u0026rsquo;ve been creating\u0026hellip; Not given the enormous amount of other deep interests that I have. The thought that I will die long before I could ever learn all the things I want to know, and create all the things I want to bring into the world, is one of incredible poignancy to me. Again, I don\u0026rsquo;t think of myself as unfortunate, and of course I realize that the world is this way for everybody, and in fact if it weren\u0026rsquo;t, who\u0026rsquo;s to say if I would find anything at all interesting, without time as a limiting factor that gives meaning to choice? Not that I think God hasn\u0026rsquo;t figured a way through that one; at least I hope he has, or else his Kingdom will be somewhat less than what he promises.\nSo there is number two\u0026ndash;the realization that time limits my fullest expressions of thirst for learning and of creativity.\nLoneliness\nMy third defining sadness is loneliness. This is odd, because I am very rarely lonely, especially now that my dream of living in a loving community which is around all the time is starting to be fulfilled. Nor is it the kind of loneliness that one feels even when tons of other people are around, due to the fact that there is no communication. No, I am not living in a Tokyo apartment building. I have the liberty of sharing my thoughts and feelings with my closest friends (and, apparently, the entire world, on this weblog!), and they have the same.\nMy next guess was to say that this loneliness I speak of is really just the same as my sadness over not having a girlfriend. Isn\u0026rsquo;t that a kind of loneliness? Yes indeed, and I think this is one of the ways that these themes are connected. However, it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be right to say that the themes are identical. What I mean by loneliness is less lack of company, or female company, and more the shock of my own individuality.\nThis should make sense, given how I keep harping on the point that these themes which cause \u0026ldquo;sadness\u0026rdquo; don\u0026rsquo;t really have anything to do with anything negative or bad, or any misfortune or any way in which I feel that my life could be better. No, loneliness here is what happens when I realize that, when it really comes down to it, I am myself. It is only me who is me, and I am not anyone else. Obvious, yes, but it means that, at some point, I am going to be some way, and the people I am with are going to be a different way.\nThe times when my individuality is thus more pronounced are therefore times when I feel that there is a very real distance between me and other people. Moreover, I have this idea that I am different than other people to a higher degree than other people are different than each other. It\u0026rsquo;s probably a false statement, and certainly only true from several narrow perspectives, but I mean\u0026hellip;look at what you are reading! Who writes this kind of weird stuff? A handful of people I can think of. The same goes for a number of things which I hold dear\u0026ndash;the books I love, the music I love, the ideas I love, the art I love\u0026hellip;more often than not, I find myself in the minority. Oh, and let\u0026rsquo;s not forget this whole overanalytic melancholiness which is the subject of this entry\u0026hellip;for some reason I feel that the number of people who can relate in experience to it is small.\nThe result of these separations, which usually happens when I am in groups of people, and for whatever reason I get whisked off by a train of my own thought to some place that I don\u0026rsquo;t think the whole group would want to be, is a sense of homelessness. There is feeling that there is nowhere for me to safely land, because landing is a vulnerable thing and more than likely the current conversation is not an appropriate or understanding place for it.\nI am glad, as a little interlude, that I am living in a community one of the purposes of which is ostensibly to intentionally confront feelings and fears like this, and I am anxious to get to the point quickly where we know each other well enough for me to actually experiment with this without fear of pushing people away.\nBut there it is\u0026ndash;all my life I have felt that the thoughts that occupy my time do not occupy the time of those around me, and so I became withdrawn. And just think, this is probably true of everyone in the world, though they might react to it differently\u0026hellip;\nBeauty\nAnd now we come to the crowning theme, which really pulls the rest together (I now think, after having written all of the previous).\nYou see, loneliness is beautiful. It is broken and beautiful, but it is beautiful because it is the voltage that allows the electricity of love to move from one person to another. Not being able to learn all the world\u0026rsquo;s languages is beautiful, because it is a perfect picture of the striving of us humans, the good striving, but the striving that cannot be fulfilled in this world. And finally, romantic heartache is beautiful because it is the art of spirit. It is the Great Art, and it is (to my complete and utter surprise and joy) the same between man and woman as between humans and God. We paint with our hearts as brushes on the canvas of the world, using our very lives as the medium. What is the picture? It is the story of love.\nBeauty can move me like no other thing. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by a beautiful song, a beautiful sunset, a beautiful story, that my heart is pierced through with a cold sliver of eternity, as if eternity itself were caught by surprise and accidentally jumped forward like an eager racehorse, ripping through the fabric of the universe to marvel, forgetting that I am not yet made of the stuff of eternity, and it is too real, so real that it injures me.\nThe end of a song can leave me reeling from a wound like this\u0026hellip;so much beauty that I never want it to end, but yet I know that if it had gone on for two more minutes, I might be permanently marred.\nThe sight of a beautiful woman also has this power, though I have so conditioned myself to look right through the beauty and to how I can gratify myself via a self-constructed fantasy world, that I am hoping I have not forever lost the purity to see holy art in a woman\u0026rsquo;s face, instead of my own greed reflected in her eyes.\nThe absolute hugeness of the universe, the alien and powerful stars and galaxies that surround us, the endless mysteries that we can never hope to plumb, the uncharacterizable motion of the waves under the moon in places where people cannot live, the answering whisper of the trees on the land, the full-throated joy and recklessness of the mountains, the unbounded curiosity of men and women, the colors we see and the eyes we see them with\u0026hellip; The world indeed is a dangerous place even to think about, when very nearly everything has a hidden power to display beauty when least expected!\nWhen my heart comes into contact with this beauty, it cannot contain it within itself, and it is released as\u0026ndash;a profound sadness that is really a joy that is really a gratitude that is really a love.\nWell, that emotion is so complex and so out-of-place in our world of the even-keel and the efficient, that maybe it is no surprise that I have only just pinpointed it as a core part of who I am. But I hope that I will continue to explore what is happening in me, and where these sadnesses come from. Mostly, though, I hope that God will continue to grant me the grace to see heart-rending beauty in the world (heart-rending indeed, because often beauty is preceded by unforgivable pain and even evil), if only because it is this beauty that gives me the strength to believe in God in the first place.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/08/my-defining-sadnesses/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am, on a relatively frequent basis, sad. It is not typically the result of anything in particular that has happened to me or anyone I know\u0026ndash;anything bad, that is. Nor is it (as far as I can tell) because I am depressed or anything like that. On the contrary, in my life right now there is such an undercurrent of joy (and, though not related, an absence of real hardship) that I am certainly neither unhappy (unfortunate) nor depressed. The feeling or emotion I am describing is maybe then not best named \u0026ldquo;sadness\u0026rdquo;. But in any case, I\u0026rsquo;ll say what it is like, and you can call it what you will (it just occurred to me to call it \u0026ldquo;nostalgia\u0026rdquo;, and that is a pretty good capture except for the connotation of remembering things being involved).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"My Defining Sadnesses"},{"content":"A few days ago, our community here in Palo Alto had a conference call with Millard Fuller, whom you may remember from my entry a while back on Koinonia Farms. Millard founded Habitat for Humanity after being at Koinonia, but was recently fired from the company he started for \u0026ldquo;philosophical\u0026rdquo; reasons. The way he tells it, he was trying to put more money back into housing projects, whereas the rest of the board was trying to become a Big Corporation.\nAnyway, the conference call was the result of some chance interactions that several in our community had with Millard (which, incidentally, were the reason I heard about Koinonia, etc\u0026hellip;), and the purpose of it was to see if there were any good ways for us to partner with Millard\u0026rsquo;s new organization, the Fuller Center for Housing. This new company aims to help people who are \u0026ldquo;too poor\u0026rdquo; for Habitat to work with.\nSome in our community were pretty excited about the prospect of doing work with an organization like this, even before the conference call, and as we listened to Millard share his vision of basic housing for the entire world, it was indeed inspiring. Already there are lots of projects all over the world for the Fullers\u0026ndash;more than they can handle, in fact.\nWe discussed a few next steps for various members of our community, and we will probably try to get together with Millard again soon to talk more. We\u0026rsquo;re hoping that, at the very least, all of us could go work for a short time on a project somewhere, maybe overseas in Nepal.\nPersonally, I have no desire to devote myself to hammering nails in Nepal, even if that is a genuine need in the world and even if it is a mandate of Christ to do that sort of thing. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s not true\u0026ndash;I do have a desire for it, just not as great a desire as for other things which I feel have an even stronger hold on my passions and abilities, and my heart. This dream of ours at Teleios, for example, is keeping me very centered in my \u0026ldquo;calling\u0026rdquo;, to use a bad Christian word.\nStill, something about physically bringing some of the signs of the Kingdom to a part of the world is very attractive, and I think that discipline is all too often overlooked by Americans in particular, and evangelicals especially. So I am glad to be in a community where such disciplines are true loves, and where I can support efforts to those ends with the resources that I have, whether it is friendship or freelance web design or physical action.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m not sure what is going to happen with this; who knows, maybe in a year a few of my friends will be moving to Sri Lanka to head up housing projects there! For me, I\u0026rsquo;m excited to see what will happen.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/the-fuller-center-for-housing/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eA few days ago, our community here in Palo Alto had a conference call with Millard Fuller, whom you may remember from my entry a while back on Koinonia Farms. Millard founded Habitat for Humanity after being at Koinonia, but was recently fired from the company he started for \u0026ldquo;philosophical\u0026rdquo; reasons. The way he tells it, he was trying to put more money back into housing projects, whereas the rest of the board was trying to become a Big Corporation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnyway, the conference call was the result of some chance interactions that several in our community had with Millard (which, incidentally, were the reason I heard about Koinonia, etc\u0026hellip;), and the purpose of it was to see if there were any good ways for us to partner with Millard\u0026rsquo;s new organization, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.fullercenter.org\"\u003eFuller Center for Housing\u003c/a\u003e. This new company aims to help people who are \u0026ldquo;too poor\u0026rdquo; for Habitat to work with.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"The Fuller Center for Housing"},{"content":"Google just released a special add-on for their maps service today, in honor of the anniversary of the first moon landing.\nI was looking at all the different landing sites, and I was surprised to see, as I looked very close, that the moon is actually made of yellow cheese! Who would have thought?\nThanks, Google, for this huge contribution to modern astronomy.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/the-moon-is-made-of-cheese/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eGoogle just released a \u003ca href=\"http://moon.google.com\"\u003especial add-on\u003c/a\u003e for their maps service today, in honor of the anniversary of the first moon landing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI was looking at all the different landing sites, and I was surprised to see, as I looked very close, that the moon is actually made of yellow cheese! Who would have thought?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThanks, Google, for this huge contribution to modern astronomy.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Moon is Made of Cheese"},{"content":"Ever since I was a child, up until about the time I left for college, one of the great loves of my life was reading. I proved this love in a very obvious way: I read all the time. Whether it was in the car on the way to school, sitting in class after I\u0026rsquo;d finished my work, during lunch time, waiting after school, in between classes, on an airplane\u0026hellip; Wherever it might be, I had my nose stuck in a book.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t really read for edification, but more for enjoyment. While I had a love of learning and of the sciences and all that, I stuck pretty much to fiction, except for a couple years in grade school and junior high where I read every book in the library on astronomy, every book on codes and ciphers, every book on programming languages, and every book on origami. While that sounds like a lot of books, it pales in comparison to the number of fiction (usually trade paperback) books I read.\nI stayed fairly well within the bounds of the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre, occasionally dabbling in YA fiction and the more popular non-fantasy fiction like Tom Clancy novels or Michael Crichton novels. On average, I would probably read a couple hundred pages a day of this stuff, so I very quickly became acquainted with all of the authors I was recommended or found on my own in the library.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not sure why I was attracted to this genre. Maybe it was that when I first learned to read, some of the first books I tackled were the Chronicles of Narnia novels, and the magic of those experiences drew me into worlds that were created to be very different from ours. Maybe I empathized with the main characters of fantasy stories, who usually had some sort of mysterious hidden powers which set them on a great adventure, because I fancied the same thing was true of myself, albeit in a very earthly and more boring way. But anyway, I\u0026rsquo;ve never figured out if I really liked fantasy because of who I was, or if I became who I was/am because I read fantasy. Probably both are true to some degree, but whichever wins out, we were a good match.\nIndeed, my first read of The Lord of the Rings, in 5th grade I think it was, was a life-changing experience for me. I recognized in those novels a creative act so profound and imaginative and detailed that I immediately knew that I wanted to emulate it, whatever it was. The vastness and beauty of the world and stories Tolkien created had a very deep impact on me, and all the more so because of the linguistic ingenuity and toil that went into developing the languages that he did.\nWhile I had dabbled in codes and cipher languages beforehand, it had never occurred to me to create an artificial natural language, with its own complete evolutionary history, grammar, morphology, lexicon, and all the rest. Of course, I began on one of these immediately. I\u0026rsquo;ve since lost all my work for that, and the one or two that came after it, but the point is I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on languages as a creative, not an educational, exercise ever since then. While this is a pretty big example of how I am dramatically different (in an odd way) than your average American because of the books that I read as a youngster, it\u0026rsquo;s certainly not the only example.\nThe main thing my love of reading got me, almost by accident, was a facility with words and putting them together in correct or interesting ways (depending on how I needed to use them). Without ever taking a writing class or wanting to (English was my least favorite subject, though I always made the highest grades in it), I became a good writer. For a young student, anyway. That ability may have left me completely by now, or may have dulled in comparison with the bright stars that are my excellent peers.\nSo it is surprising that, after beginning at Stanford (even, to some extent, after moving to Florida the year before), I pretty much stopped reading for entertainment entirely. Part of it was my newfound hobby of exploring Christian philosophy and apologetics, which lent more to reading non-fiction texts, but I think a good deal of it was that I started to hang around people more, instead of retreating to a room by myself with a book. While I have fond memories of that particularly comfortable action, I guess I decided that I was just too big of a nerd, and I needed to learn how to make friends and have winning social skills, or something like that.\nThen, with the move to study philosophy at Stanford, I spent so much time every day reading philosophy that I had no desire left to open a book, even if it was one that I\u0026rsquo;d been wanting to read. Also around that time I began to take physical activity much more seriously. I got into running and rock climbing and began to devote much of my free time to those pursuits. They opened up a new and entirely enjoyable world to me of physical discipline, which I\u0026rsquo;d never been particularly turned off to, but rather had never got into because I was (and everyone told me I was) the \u0026ldquo;nerd type\u0026rdquo;. Team sports were therefore out of the question in high school, because people would expect me to suck at them and not give me a chance to improve, so I ended up actually sucking at them. Maybe that\u0026rsquo;s why I got into climbing and running first\u0026ndash;individual sports where I was my only judge. There is much comparison with others in those sports, of course, but you rarely let others down by sucking. Anyway, I ramble.\nThe point is, my life began to take a much more well-rounded shape. I am very happy for this, and today, four or five years later, I feel that my mind is sharp, but also my body is in the best shape it\u0026rsquo;s ever been, and allows me to engage by myself and with other athletes at a decent level, at just about any activity (disregarding my current sprained ankle).\nWe were moving houses in Orlando the other week, though, and so I was unpacking my library of books into bookshelves. Each one that came out was like a little bit of nostalgia, reminding me of the time that we were friends. Some of the books even seemed to sulk accusingly, wondering where I\u0026rsquo;ve been. It triggered a bit of a lament, that something which was so important to me, and which I still long to spend time with, has been sort of shoved to the back of my personality. I don\u0026rsquo;t think this is really lamented in my community, as no one else really seems to have been the bookworm (though many of us are nerds, of course), so there\u0026rsquo;s also a sensation of loneliness when I regard this current lack of mine.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t stop reading absolutely completely, of course, and I was very glad to be spending most of my reading time studying philosophy, which I love. It did mean that I would read something like 4-5 novels a year, instead of 40-50 (during my most bookwormy days).\nOne of the other things I miss about reading a lot of good fantasy stories is the way that they hook into my memories along with music. This fact about music and story was one of the first things I realized about myself when I first began to self-reflect heavily. I can listen to a CD that I used to listen to when reading a particular book, and somehow it will bring back a flood of associations with that story, but also with the time in which I was reading, and whatever else was going on in life then. Actually, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if I really like the fact that many of my memories are tied up in stories rather than reality, but on the other hand I don\u0026rsquo;t want to dismiss the importance of story in our lives that way.\nAt any rate, much of that is to say that I am looking forward to not being able to run or play sports for the next month in some ways, primarily because it means I might be able to catch up on my reading. You see, various family members and others who knew of my love for books never actually stopped giving them to me as gifts, even though I\u0026rsquo;d stopped having the time to keep up with them. So I\u0026rsquo;ve got a whole bookshelf of stuff that I\u0026rsquo;m sure is really good, but I never got around to it. Hopefully that will happen now.\nAs a matter of fact, I\u0026rsquo;ve spent some good time pretty much every day in the last couple weeks doing some reading. I never used to work through more than one book at a time until I got to college (mostly because I read them so quick there was no need to), but I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on a few. I just finished El Alquimista, which is the Spanish translation of The Alchemist, originally written in Portuguese by Paulo Coelho. It\u0026rsquo;s not so much a fantasy story as a fairly short fable with a great story and message. I read it primarily because it was in a genre that I enjoyed, and because I felt that I should work on my Spanish. It actually marks the first novel that I\u0026rsquo;ve read cover to cover in Spanish, so I am proud to have done that (even though it was rather short). For some reason the translation of it is much, much easier to read than the translation of Harry Potter that I\u0026rsquo;ve half-heartedly picked up now and then. Anyway, I\u0026rsquo;ve also read the English version of this book, and it comes highly recommended.\nI also just finished a book that Dan got me a couple years ago for Christmas, called Tales Before Tolkien, edited by Douglas Adams. It\u0026rsquo;s a collection of short stories by authors that Tolkien liked, or that influenced him, or that were his contemporaries, and things like that. Of the 20 or so stories, there were only a few that I didn\u0026rsquo;t really enjoy, and it was cool to see what \u0026ldquo;fairy tales\u0026rdquo; were like before Tolkien really catalyzed the \u0026ldquo;fantasy\u0026rdquo; genre.\nAs you know if you\u0026rsquo;ve been reading this blog for long, I\u0026rsquo;ve also been very slowly working through A Kierkegaard Anthology, edited I believe by Bretall. It is fairly heavy reading, but every time I commit time to it, I feel that I am immensely rewarded. In fact, of all the philosophers/theologians that I have read, I feel a very curious kinship with Kierkegaard. Maybe it is his insistence that he is a poet which I resonate most with, or maybe it is his whole-hearted devotion interacting with his genius that I long to emulate (with whatever fraction of genius it is that I have).\nIn any case, he is almost singlehandedly restoring my faith in the Bible as a text which remains deep and mysterious and fruitful for me to continue to study. I just read a portion of Works of Love, for instance, where he expands on the exhortation, \u0026ldquo;Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself\u0026rdquo;. In 20 pages, he said so many interesting and deeply true (I believe) things about love that every now and then I had to shut the book and my eyes and just process. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to blindly follow whatever he\u0026rsquo;s saying, but when I read something of his and feel that I really understand it, I can\u0026rsquo;t help but thinking that it is both insightful, true, and what\u0026rsquo;s more encouraging. On the whole, I think the repudiation of him in the current Christian culture (as the father of Existentialism or whatever) is pretty much unjustified and a result of a shallow understanding of his thought (though I\u0026rsquo;m not yet a scholar, of course).\nSo, I\u0026rsquo;m feeling hopeful as regards reading, and I\u0026rsquo;m already wondering what it is that I\u0026rsquo;ll pick up next. Perhaps the new Harry Potter\u0026ndash;Nyffy and I are going to have a series of reading parties with that one, I think. Stories like that are especially fun to read aloud (though maybe not as fun as The Chronicles of Narnia, because Rowling\u0026rsquo;s writing is so modern; it just doesn\u0026rsquo;t sound like one is reading an old fairy tale), so Nyffy and I enjoy trading chapters to read while the other smokes a pipe\u0026ndash;another thing that Lewis and Tolkien bequeathed to us.\nWell, there it is\u0026ndash;an ode to the place of reading in my love and a pledge not to forget it entirely in the name of \u0026ldquo;balance\u0026rdquo;.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/spending-time-with-an-old-friend/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eEver since I was a child, up until about the time I left for college, one of the great loves of my life was reading. I proved this love in a very obvious way: I read all the time. Whether it was in the car on the way to school, sitting in class after I\u0026rsquo;d finished my work, during lunch time, waiting after school, in between classes, on an airplane\u0026hellip; Wherever it might be, I had my nose stuck in a book.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Spending Time With An Old Friend"},{"content":"Over the past couple weeks, this server has been experiencing some major issues. As the guy who\u0026rsquo;s supposed to be running the thing, these major issues have been quite trying for me.\n**What follows is a rather uninteresting account of some nerd stuff**\nFor instance, here I am on a Sunday night in Wisconsin about to go to my grandmother\u0026rsquo;s 80th birthday. I\u0026rsquo;ve spent the past few weeks getting this fun server back into shape after it practically exploded with Plesk/PHP5/Apache/MySQL conflicts and incompatibilities.\nThe kind people at [insert our hosting provider\u0026rsquo;s name here], where we host, went back and forth, fixing one problem and breaking something else in the meantime, to the extent that I resorted to several ultimatums demanding a working server or I\u0026rsquo;d take my business elsewhere, etc\u0026hellip;\nWell, a week or so ago, things finally settled down, PHP started working (which is important, because it is what is running the scripts that make up this application), MySQL stopped not working (which is also important, because it is the database server which holds all the information in this web application), and the little server ecosystem was more or less at peace. So I\u0026rsquo;d gone back to something I actually know a little about, which is coding, glad that my ignorance at web server administration had ceased being put to the test.\nBut like I said, here I am on a Sunday night in Wisconsin, and all of a sudden I get an IM from Faith: \u0026ldquo;Uh, what happened to the server?\u0026rdquo;. Whoops\u0026ndash;all PHP scripts are now returning an error 52, which is a \u0026ldquo;no data\u0026rdquo; error. I take a look at Apache\u0026rsquo;s error logs, and all I see is a bunch of \u0026ldquo;segmented execution fault\u0026rdquo; thread errors. I have no idea what this means, because these aren\u0026rsquo;t sensible web-server errors, but instead just signify that some binary somewhere blew up somehow.\nTo make things really awesome, my whole team is actually at work on this Sunday night, because tomorrow is a Big Day. It\u0026rsquo;s one of those Days where the work we are doing actually needs to work, behave, not have bugs, integrate well, and so forth. I can\u0026rsquo;t say exactly why it\u0026rsquo;s a Big Day, but it is. And now, my simple little web application isn\u0026rsquo;t working. It wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be so bad only from one perspective it\u0026rsquo;s really the glue that holds a lot of the online functionality for Teleios courses together. Whoops!\nSo we\u0026rsquo;re at T-minus some small number of hours, and my server blows up. I\u0026rsquo;m not too excited about my chances of getting actual tech support anytime soon, since the last time I had a problem it took two weeks to get it worked out. So I called our hosting company and asked about getting a new server ASAP, one with all the pieces working from the factory, instead of one that I hacked for a while then cried for help on, then got help that actually blew more stuff up, and so on. They said it was a no-go, as was our option for an OS reload and reinstall tonight, because, \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t even know if there are any guys that do OS reloads back there right now\u0026rdquo;.\nNeedless to say, we\u0026rsquo;re experiencing some major frustrations, as lots of testing needs to be done tonight and there\u0026rsquo;s no server to test on. So I plead with the tech support guy I\u0026rsquo;ve got on the phone, and he promises to take a look at things himself and fix it if he could. Meanwhile our backup plan is to hack together an in-house server for the Big Event and get a copy of this application installed there. Only thing is, I\u0026rsquo;ve never installed the application somewhere else, databases aren\u0026rsquo;t set up, data is not backed up, and\u0026hellip; I can\u0026rsquo;t even have access to the in-house server because it\u0026rsquo;s\u0026hellip;in-house! Meaning, behind a firewall in Orlando, and I\u0026rsquo;m in the middle of Dairyland, getting on a plane in a few hours where I won\u0026rsquo;t even have internet.\nSo I\u0026rsquo;m trying to remember how exactly to get this app running on a server, what all the parts are, how to set up the database, and kicking myself for not writing a nice little delivery script which would just install on command anywhere you wanted. I\u0026rsquo;m writing Joe a very detailed set of instructions on how to set all these things up, and hoping they\u0026rsquo;re detailed enough to get things right the first time, because if something goes wrong, well, I\u0026rsquo;m on a plane, and I can\u0026rsquo;t help.\nThen, when everything seems most desperate, I get word from the tech support guys that they fixed the problem! They described it in detail to me, and I realized it\u0026rsquo;s something that I should have known how to fix myself (just a configuration file misload for apache), but couldn\u0026rsquo;t troubleshoot because I\u0026rsquo;m not that smart at linuxy stuff yet. I\u0026rsquo;d really like to be, so that I could actually handle some of these problems myself, but alas, I am not.\nThe story has a good ending, and has taught me some very valuable lessons about server administration; most importantly, don\u0026rsquo;t let them get screwed up. Because if you do that and try to fix them, you\u0026rsquo;ll probably break things worse. And then it\u0026rsquo;s all over!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/travails-of-a-fledgling-sysadmin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOver the past couple weeks, this server has been experiencing some major issues. As the guy who\u0026rsquo;s supposed to be running the thing, these major issues have been quite trying for me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e**What follows is a rather uninteresting account of some nerd stuff**\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Travails of a Fledgling Sysadmin"},{"content":"That\u0026rsquo;s right\u0026ndash;we finally have a home! After 8 months of bumming around Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, crashing with friends, and sleeping in my sleeping bag, I am the proud (if somewhat cynical and ironic) new resident of an old but well-kept apartment in Palo Alto. I\u0026rsquo;m living with 4 other guys from my community, as we were able to get two 2-bedroom places right next to each other, and indeed in the same building as our beloved married couple.\nEver since the idea for the large community house in East Palo Alto didn\u0026rsquo;t pan out for a number of reasons, I\u0026rsquo;d been more discouraged about our interactions for the coming year, but now it seems my fears were unfounded, since we\u0026rsquo;re basically all ending up in the same building anyway, sans 1 or 2 in a house about a quarter of a mile away. So really there\u0026rsquo;s not a lot to complain about. We are in ritzy Palo Alto of course, paying an exorbitant number of dollars for rent, and far from the realities that most of the world experiences. But, we hope that we\u0026rsquo;ll remain untainted by the glut of rampant capitalism that surrounds us (please don\u0026rsquo;t take that too communistically) and not get too sucked into Silicon Valley culture and indolence (while affirming and remaining inspired by the innovation and other great properties of the place).\nI\u0026rsquo;m also excited to be back close to my Stanford stomping grounds, which is great for running and cycling and playing on Stanford-owned fields and courts (which we do quite happily even though none of us are really students anymore. In fact, I was driving over from EPA about once a day, whether to visit people or play sports or whatever, and that was about the only driving I was doing since I work at home. This means of course, that on an average day I will no longer need a car, since I\u0026rsquo;m within a mile of all these places! That\u0026rsquo;s good news for me.\nOf course the talk about sports is a bit ironic, since a week ago I was playing Tennis with Justin and had a little fall which resulted, I thought, in a broken ankle. After 6 hours in the emergency room, I learned that it was only a bad sprain, which was quite a relief, but still puts me out of commission for about 4 weeks. I was even on crutches for a few days, which was a new and interesting experience for me, and which I rather liked, but it made just about every action take twice as long. I also learned a great deal more balance, as I had to take my long showers whilst standing on my left foot the whole time.\nAnother great irony of the week is that our move in day is today (Saturday), but am I even in California? No, I\u0026rsquo;m in Wisconsin. I left on Thursday for Florida, and braved the airport sans crutches, hobbling along rather self-consciously, as the only way I can currently walk is to not bend my ankle but treat my leg as a big stump, from hip to heel. I spent one night in Orlando, then had another day of traveling with my family to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where I\u0026rsquo;m sitting in my hotel room at the moment; we\u0026rsquo;re here for my grandmother\u0026rsquo;s 80th birthday party.\nBut it\u0026rsquo;s ironic because moving in in Palo Alto was to be one of the crowning moments thus far of our little community, and a very symbolic act, and because it took us about a month longer to get a place than planned, there was no way to avoid being gone for the move in. Ah well, the other guys are taking care of things while I\u0026rsquo;m gone.\nSo, there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of excitement right now, and I am looking forward to getting back and setting things in order, and finally feeling like I have a home in California. I\u0026rsquo;ll be sharing a room with Justin, which will be a little tight, but will hopefully also have my own little desk area downstairs where I can keep all my computer and work paraphernalia (which is a massive amount of trendy technology, let me tell you).\nWell, I just wanted to celebrate that important milestone in my life at the moment. Here\u0026rsquo;s to the coming year!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/palo-altos-newest-residents/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThat\u0026rsquo;s right\u0026ndash;we finally have a home! After 8 months of bumming around Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, crashing with friends, and sleeping in my sleeping bag, I am the proud (if somewhat cynical and ironic) new resident of an old but well-kept apartment in Palo Alto. I\u0026rsquo;m living with 4 other guys from my community, as we were able to get two 2-bedroom places right next to each other, and indeed in the same building as our beloved married couple.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Palo Alto's Newest Residents"},{"content":"For our celebration of America\u0026rsquo;s independence this year, a few in our community went up to an apartment in San Francisco to hang out and experience the fireworks shows. While waiting for these shows, we had the opportunity to watch the critically-acclaimed independent film, Aliens vs Predator. It was truly amazing; I\u0026rsquo;ve never seen the mix-two-sci-fi-thriller-worlds-and-everybody-dies genre so full of promise!\nAfter the fireworks, we watched a slightly different film.\nThis film was a documentary, called Briars in the Cotton Patch: The Story of Koinonia Farms, and it indeed was the story of Koinonia farms, a small farming community in rural Americus, Georgia in the 40s and 50s, founded by Clarence and Florence Jordan. The farm was interesting because there, (a) people were living in very close Christian community in much the ways that our community is trying to live now\u0026ndash;sharing meals, working together, etc\u0026hellip;, and (b) blacks and whites were treated genuinely equally.\nBoth were radically counter-cultural, but Koinonia got into a hell of a lot of trouble for treating blacks the same as whites. While people in Georgia were happy to let an odd little Christian community be all communal in their farming in living, they were certainly not going to stand by and let them treat blacks as equals!\nThe story of Koinonia from its inception through to now was incredibly inspiring for those of us watching. They weathered oppression of almost every kind\u0026ndash;religious, financial, and physical. Their farm was bombed and shot at and boycotted and almost muscled out of town, but the resolve that theirs was a true way of life kept Koinonia members in their path.\nLater on in their history, Habitat for Humanity was born out of Koinonia, and that is now an internationally-recognized Christian organization which actually does some good for the world.\nWhat I took most to heart about the documentary was this: when trying to live a life out of an authentic and genuine interpretation of what Scripture tells us the full life really is, we will naturally bump up against the things that need to be confronted in our culture. For Koinonia, it was very much the issue of racial segregation and prejudice. While the rest of their country was content to kick black folks out of white churches, Koinonia stuck with an authentic interpretation of what church is supposed to be, and as a result of that they were vilified (by Christians in Americus no less than non-Christians\u0026hellip;though everyone was \u0026ldquo;Christian\u0026rdquo; then anyhow).\nThe question it raises for us as we try to live in our authentic communities is then, what is the issue or issues, not that define us, but that define the fallen state of the world around us, which we will naturally come into contact with and will inevitably have to decide what to do about? Is it maybe peace, international policy? Is it poverty? Is it aid? Is it HIV/AIDS? I\u0026rsquo;m not exactly sure. But I am excited to live a deeply true life with Jesus in community, and have no doubt that he will guide us directly to the hurts of the worlds that are around us. I hope when that happens we have the courage to address those hurts and not assume, like the white people in the 40s did, that that was just the way things were supposed to be.\nKoinonia farms is now Koinonia Partners, and they have a bit of history on their website: check it out.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/koinonia-farms/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor our celebration of America\u0026rsquo;s independence this year, a few in our community went up to an apartment in San Francisco to hang out and experience the fireworks shows. While waiting for these shows, we had the opportunity to watch the critically-acclaimed independent film, \u003cem\u003eAliens vs Predator\u003c/em\u003e. It was truly amazing; I\u0026rsquo;ve never seen the mix-two-sci-fi-thriller-worlds-and-everybody-dies genre so full of promise!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the fireworks, we watched a slightly different film.\u003c/p\u003e\n","title":"Koinonia Farms"},{"content":"Welcome to my e4:online weblog! I am not sure what I will be writing here at the moment, but hopefully many things of great importance. I may also copy over some entries from my old Excelsis or jonathanlipps.com weblogs, just to have some data here. Well, stay tuned!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/welcome/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to my e4:online weblog! I am not sure what I will be writing here at the moment, but hopefully many things of great importance. I may also copy over some entries from my old Excelsis or jonathanlipps.com weblogs, just to have some data here. Well, stay tuned!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Welcome"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m sitting on a plane right now, from Dallas to San Jose. This is something I\u0026rsquo;ve done quite frequently in the past few months, between all the family events going on at home and flying back and forth for Teleios (the company I now work for\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s the same one as before, we just got bored of our old name). I typically hate this particular leg, since it\u0026rsquo;s a decently long flight east-to-west (4 hrs), and since it consists primarily of businesspeople, who of course are all Platinum or Executive Platinum on American.\nThis latter fact means a few things: (1) when you pre-board Plat/E.Plat folks, the whole plane basically gets on at once, which defeats the whole point of the boarding-by-group system, (2) every time I try to upgrade to first class for free (something you can do occasionally as a Platinum), 50 or so other people have already put requests in, so it is inevitably impossible (I know, poor me, no first class\u0026hellip;), (3) everyone\u0026rsquo;s the trendy on-the-go business traveler with a huge laptop bag or pack, along with an oversized roller bag. All of these things have to go into the overhead bins, of course, which means if you\u0026rsquo;re not cutthroat with your boarding procedure, you\u0026rsquo;ll end up with nowhere to put your own huge laptop bag and oversized luggage. Anyway, just some minor annoyances that you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t even notice if you aren\u0026rsquo;t a part of corporate traveling culture (which I suppose, ironically, I am a part of now).\nThe more important part about being on a plane is this: of all the places in the world that I typically go, I get the best meditating and thinking done on planes. Something about sitting by a window looking out onto invariably-beautiful scenes (unless we\u0026rsquo;re completely in a cloud), having my ears filled with white noise (or listening to good music really loud, which is more often the case), and having nowhere else to go\u0026hellip; well, something about it makes my mind sink deep into my soul, where they can meet and hang out for a while.\nOftentimes they\u0026rsquo;ll invite my heart in as well, but this is generally only if I do get the first class upgrades and it\u0026rsquo;s late enough in the day for me to be drinking (as I am right now, incidentally. I always order the same drink on plane flights\u0026ndash;vodka and coke. Today when I ordered it, and I suppose it was only about 10:30 in the morning, I got a funny look from the flight attendant. I suppose it\u0026rsquo;s not a common drink to begin with, and no doubt the whole AM thing had something to do with it. Well, that\u0026rsquo;s what I get for flying east-to-west, I suppose).\nBut I keep rambling; and, since I have roughly 3 more hours to write this entry, I will probably continue to do so. Reader, prepare yourself! Gird thy loins with the belt of blog-patience. Either that, or secure thy hands with the gloves of clicking-the-back-button! (Sorry, too much World of Warcraft recently\u0026hellip;and the Bible, I guess. Breastplate of Righteousness: 600 armor, +8 agility, +7 stamina, +3 fire resistance)\u0026hellip;\n\u0026ndash;break\u0026ndash;\n\u0026hellip;actually, I didn\u0026rsquo;t keep writing this on the plane. I was sitting next to a young woman who looked about my age so we started up a conversation and ended up talking for the remainder of the flight. We talked about everything from philosophy to religion to ethics to family to love to relationships to truth to community\u0026hellip;well, as much as you can talk about these things in 3 hours. Definitely the best random plane conversation I\u0026rsquo;ve ever had\u0026hellip;\nBut enough of the hard-to-follow skips through time in this entry. My point was about airplanes and how they are for me a place of solace, rest, and meditation. I suppose it is ironic that I was writing about that just as I entered into a conversation, which by definition would make solace, rest, and meditation impossible\u0026ndash;but irony or no, what transpired was much better than whatever I would have gained by a few hours\u0026rsquo; solace.\nNyffy did a graphic design project a while ago that connected various people\u0026rsquo;s places or moments or experiences in which they tended to feel a sense of transcendence. Unfortunately I missed the cut-off date for submission to his project, but I was planning on writing about airplanes, how they are for me a place where transcendence is immanent, where life is (for the moment) pure and I can be honest with God and myself. So I cherish the times spent in the window seat, listening to music and pondering and looking out at the big world passing below, seeing memorable landmarks, like Half Dome or the Grand Canyon, or old or current residences of mine.\nBut all of the foregoing is merely a longwinded preamble (a pre-ramble, I should say) to the original point of this post, which has not yet been divulged to you but which I have had in my crafty mind from the beginning. Yes, the point is none other than to let you, my faithful reader, know what has been going on in my life! Do hold the applause till I am finished; I know all of you were awaiting this information whilst seeing who could hold her breath the longest.\nIn short, the last 5 weeks or so have been incredible, primarily because each weekend I\u0026rsquo;ve been able to do something reasonably awesome with close friends. First (and this may have been covered in my May update) there was a trip to Santa Barbara, which consisted of much outdoors time, bouldering and bushwacking and scrambling through rocky terrain, following rivers upstream and diving from heights into clearwater pools\u0026hellip; Not to mention beach volleyball and Jack Daniels, cigars, and spiritual conversation in hot tubs. [ Pictures]\nNot to be outdone, weekend #2 took 8 others and myself to Pinnacles National Monument, a few hours away, for a day of climbing and hiking. Dan and I introduced some of our friends to outdoor sport climbing for most of the day, then we had an intense hike to the peak of a nearby mountain to catch sunset over a beautiful valley to the east. [ Pictures]\nThe following week, my boss Pavi came to CA for the Apple Developer\u0026rsquo;s Conference, but we spent a lot of time hanging out in Palo Alto and San Francisco, coding, talking about life, talking about community, looking at the future, and generally having a good time. I\u0026rsquo;m hoping that that good experience will convince him and my other Teleios cronies to move out west.\nThat weekend (June 11-13) was Stanford\u0026rsquo;s 2005 graduation, and so there were a number of parties and events I went to to celebrate my friends\u0026rsquo; successes. I was very graciously invited to Dan\u0026rsquo;s family graduation dinner, which was of epic proportions and quality. Yet even more exciting was the day of graduation itself, which went something like this: 5 or so of us guys went and rented a large moving truck, put on wifebeater undershirts with our codenames on the back and \u0026ldquo;Su Madre Movers\u0026rdquo; on the front, and headed to campus.\nWe were all accoutred for the task (which was soon to be at hand) in various garb. My uniform, apart from the shirt, consisted of a trucker beer hat, aviator sunglasses, headphones, and cigarettes, one of which I tried to keep lit and in the general vicinity of my person for the remainder of the day. Others sported the \u0026ldquo;gangsta beanie\u0026rdquo; or the classic 70s headband.\nThus prepared, we took our behemoth of a vehicle to campus and proceeded to scour various residences for booty. Not the rear-end kind, mind you, but that wonderful treasure coveted by pirates. In our piratey case: anything of value, but mostly furniture. We stopped at every dumpster on campus (which has a considerable area), finding gems here and there such as couches, mattresses, vacuum cleaners, breadmakers, unopened bottles of vodka, baseball bats, desks, and the like.\nEncouraged by this success, we decided to start going into residences and ask those moving out if they had anything to donate. Often we were greeted by skepticism, but even more often people seemed happy to unload all the things they hadn\u0026rsquo;t been able to sell before moving out. This was no doubt due to the professional look of our \u0026ldquo;Su Madre Movers\u0026rdquo; shirts.\nAt the end of the day we had two truckfuls of items of various worth, which we may use in our new apartment, or which we may try and sell on craigslist. More importantly, we had a day of incredible fun, riding on the back of a moving truck over speedbumps and around corners, smoking cigarettes, stealing things from Stanford students\u0026hellip; We even had one very brave female join us for most of the day, and she has accordingly now garnered almost enough cool points to be an honorary Su Madre.\n[ Pictures]\nThe next weekend (actually, the next Monday), I drove to Yosemite with Jenna, Emilee, and Em\u0026rsquo;s brother and dad. We were planning on doing a night hike of Half Dome, which is one of my favorite things to do in the world, and which I\u0026rsquo;ve written about on two other occasions. On our way, there was some doubt as to whether we would actually be able to do the night hike (as opposed to a day hike), because we needed to be back early on Tuesday. Thankfully, I was able to convince everyone that we would be OK doing it at night.\nWe spent the day eating lots of food and resting up, and then finally started on the trail around 11pm. The four of us made a good pace, but there was no hurry since we had a lot of time until sunrise. All the sections of the 8.5-mile uphill trail were familiar to me, having done it quite a few times before, and so we made our way with no more difficulty than the trail would have provided in the daytime.\nAs in previous times I\u0026rsquo;d done the night hike, we\u0026rsquo;d timed it well. The previous day had been a full moon, so she was still out and bright. In fact, it was the brightest and clearest I\u0026rsquo;d ever soon it on this hike, so I knew we were in for a treat at the top. It was, unfortunately, very cold, and though we\u0026rsquo;d brought many layers of the appropriate type of clothing, the extremely strong wind and at times sub-freezing temperatures were a little uncomfortable. Our early start time proved to be a disadvantage, as we got to the top long before sunrise and had nothing to do except sit and freeze. It is amazing how little you feel the cold when doing the hard aerobic workout that hiking half dome is, and amazing how much you feel it when you stop.\nThe sunrise came in due time, and actually earlier than on any other day of the year, for it was the summer solstice. The beauty moved me deeply, as it always does, and I felt at home in the alien granite landscape. Time was of the essence on this particular trip, however, so we had to be on our way, after firing up the stove and having some hot chocolate and oatmeal.\nWe made it back down by 8:30am, where Emilee\u0026rsquo;s dad was waiting to take us four weary hikers back to Palo Alto.\n[ Pictures]\nNot to be tied down, I left a few days later for Orlando, along with my guitar. You see, I was flying home for a very special occasion\u0026ndash;the creation of another Nyffy! That\u0026rsquo;s right, Nyffy was getting married and passing his very odd last name to a very awesome (and fortunate in all other respects) lady. As part of the specialness of the occasion, I\u0026rsquo;d tried to write a song for them, which they ended up wanting performed at their wedding.\nI drove up to St. Augustine, on of our favorite places in Florida, on Thursday, along with Andy. We met up with Chris and his groomsmen and had an awesome night of hanging out at the pool, eating Pizzalley\u0026rsquo;s and drinking beer. Someone woke me up on Friday and told me we were going to the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Jacksonville, and so all of us ended up there around lunchtime. We took a tour of the facilities, which was capped off by some free beer and many A-B advertisements. An interesting expedition none the less, and good fresh beer.\nWedding rehearsals tend to happen on Friday, so we did that, and my brother Dav drove up with his new djembe to play along with me. There was a rehearsal dinner, much roasting and talking, good food, and all that should be there the day before two friends start their new life together. The 10 or 12 guys who\u0026rsquo;d come up to see Nyffy off stayed up late for a very awesome (and confidential) time of sharing and encouragement (and of course, Jack Daniels).\nThe next morning was a time of practicing the song I\u0026rsquo;d written, for the infamous Jason Killingsworth had arrived with his own acoustic axe, and I had to teach him the song we were to play. Long before we were really ready, the wedding actually happened, and it was a wonderful ceremony. Chris and Anne\u0026rsquo;s pastor from Gainesville gave a moving little homily on marriage, the old organ guy was right on, and there was much crying in the audience (even, I am glad to report, during my song\u0026hellip;which seemed to be executed at the high standard which Chris and Anne deserved).\nThe reception was joyful and full of good food and drink, great conversation, and of course some crazy dancing. The young men did the customary deface-the-newlyweds-car thing, unfortunately in a not very clever and blatantly crude way\u0026hellip;but what can you do? I drank way too much beer while staying mostly sober, and then all of a sudden we were lighting sparklers and chasing the bride and groom to their shockingly sexified chariot. We all said our goodbyes, and I gave Chris a slightly tearful hug, then they were off!\nLuckily for me, I have just a few days to see Chris and Anne again, since they are moving to Palo Alto, of all places! Chris got an internship with Ideo here in town, so I am looking forward to living closer to him than I ever have before. World domination will be just a few steps away. That, and all the great beer that I am sure we will brew.\nDriving home from St. Augustine was not in any particular way relaxing, however, since the next week in Orlando was to be full of work and unpacking. You see, my family had been building a house near the airport, and it had finally been completed just that weekend. So all of our free time was taken up moving boxes and unpacking them. The house is very exciting however, particularly for me and my brother, since we convinced my parents that it would be a good idea to make the upstairs bonus area studio-ready. That is, it consists of two rooms separated by a pane of glass, so we have a recording room and a control room. Dav and I also just bought a lot of new sound equipment, studio foam, etc\u0026hellip; So we are looking forward to putting out some great new Splendour Hyaline music soon.\nAnyway, the week was full of driving to and from Teleios downtown (which is a much longer commute from the new house, unfortunately), coding at work, hanging out with folks from work, and unpacking. I got very little sleep, up until the morning I got on the plane back to Palo Alto, which is where we began this story.\nWell, I apologize for the play-by-play here\u0026hellip;just some things I know I\u0026rsquo;ll be glad to have written later on. This truly was a string of awesome weekends and weeks in between, and here\u0026rsquo;s to hoping that I\u0026rsquo;ll wrote some more interesting things soon!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/07/june-2005-or-another-boring-catch-up-entry/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m sitting on a plane right now, from Dallas to San Jose. This is something I\u0026rsquo;ve done quite frequently in the past few months, between all the family events going on at home and flying back and forth for Teleios (the company I now work for\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s the same one as before, we just got bored of our old name). I typically hate this particular leg, since it\u0026rsquo;s a decently long flight east-to-west (4 hrs), and since it consists primarily of businesspeople, who of course are all Platinum or Executive Platinum on American.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"June 2005 (or,  another boring catch-up entry)"},{"content":"Tonight, after wandering around the streets of College Terrace in Palo Alto, looking for a 3-bedroom house for rent, it became dinner time. My wandering companions all had prior commitments, and none of the few others I called were available, so I ended up going to a small and reasonably-priced Chinese restaurant on El Camino, alone. I\u0026rsquo;d eaten there once before, also by myself on that occasion, and I remembered it as a place where I could relax, take my time over the meal, drink some soothing tea, and reflect without interruption.\nBecause that\u0026rsquo;s what I tend to do when I\u0026rsquo;m alone\u0026ndash;reflect. As the word implies, most of the time I end up reflecting reflexively, that is, on myself and my feelings or desires. Occasionally something not related to me will come up in a train of thought and I\u0026rsquo;ll leave behind my little camp of selfish narcissism to follow it and reflect (if only duly) on it, but for the most part I just wallow in whatever is currently clouding me, in the hopes that the fog will burn off in the bright glare of my intellect. I\u0026rsquo;ll let you guess how often that happens\u0026hellip; But reflecting remains one of my fondest hobbies.\nTonight, reflection returned to reminiscence, and I thought back to a year ago, when I was finishing up classes and papers, climbing Snakedike with Dan, hiking Half-Dome with my friends, preparing to drive cross-country with Dav, and saying goodbye to Stanford. The reminiscence aroused a strong sense of nostalgia for me, probably because that particular series of weeks last year is still accounted by me as the best time of my life, in terms of the euphoria related with graduating and moving into the next phase of life, etc\u0026hellip;\nDriven by that nostalgia, I ended up back at Stanford, which I realized I hadn\u0026rsquo;t visited in some months now, despite it being only a few minutes away. I parked in the Oval and headed slowly to the Quad, which was the place on campus I would always go at night when I wanted to think or pray or feel or be alone. The atmosphere there is incredible to me\u0026ndash;the architecture is amazing, and made genuinely awesome by the soft and subtle lighting all around the old sandstone arcades.\nAt times the facade of Memorial Church is lighted by spotlights cleverly hidden in nearby palm trees, and then I like to sit and ponder while looking at the beautiful mosaic of Christ teaching. Tonight the church was lighted in this way, and as it came into view from the Oval I almost began to cry as the memory of all the previous meaningful time spent there came back as experience.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s more, I had the luck to be walking towards the church as some chorale group was giving a concert inside. These are my favorite times to be in the Quad, because I can go sit in the rose garden to one side of the church, and hear the music bleeding in ghostly strains from the stained glass windows, an audible analogue to the light from the windows, soft and wavering, barely pushing through the color.\nSo I sat and continued my reflection and remembrance, becoming increasingly emotional as I remembered all the things that had transpired in the last five years, and how they have made me into who I am. I decided that I have become this way, curiously, not just because of Stanford and my experiences here, but in many ways, in spite of them. I reflected that Stanford probably didn\u0026rsquo;t want me to turn out exactly how I did. What\u0026rsquo;s more surprising, I don\u0026rsquo;t think some of the more anti-\u0026ldquo;Stanford\u0026rdquo; elements of my experience here (Christian groups/culture, for example), would have really wanted me to turn out this way, either! I feel like I\u0026rsquo;ve become something new and, importantly, exactly what I want to be at the moment.\nNostalgia and reflection also have a tendency to cause me to revisit my current state of loneliness (not in the community sense; the romantic one) and engage in some very useless, pathetically sad, wishful thinking. As I said before, I don\u0026rsquo;t know where these things come from, but I see them as forming some of my core struggles with God. Some struggle with faith\u0026ndash;believing that God is real or that he works in the world. Some struggle with identity or purpose\u0026ndash;who they are or what God wants them to do. I\u0026rsquo;ve struggled with these things too, but only, it seems, on the road to struggling with love. They\u0026rsquo;ve never occupied my every waking thought; I could put the struggle aside and go on with life. That\u0026rsquo;s been much harder with this new contest.\nBut at any rate, it should be said that I am certainly more annoyed than you, the reader, that all of my otherwise-interesting ramblings eventually degenerate into painful whining for a girlfriend. That itself is a large part of the problem. Oh well, patience is the order of the day, and so I ask you all to have patience with me while I learn also to have it. That, or stop reading\u0026ndash;but who\u0026rsquo;d want to experience that kind of withdrawal?\nEnough of the result of tonight\u0026rsquo;s reflections. I wish they\u0026rsquo;d involved more of the non-personal things I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about lately, for instance the extremely stimulating philosophical discussion on the nature of language and grammar that I had today with Nick and Justin. But alas, I am now and will always be more driven by the thoughts of love or nostalgia than any important philosophical question. I am glad, though, that I am back here at Stanford, illusorily lonely or no, and can once again visit the Quad at night, or go for a smoke in the rose garden and hear angel-song drifting from the church.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/06/dining-alone/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTonight, after wandering around the streets of College Terrace in Palo Alto, looking for a 3-bedroom house for rent, it became dinner time. My wandering companions all had prior commitments, and none of the few others I called were available, so I ended up going to a small and reasonably-priced Chinese restaurant on El Camino, alone. I\u0026rsquo;d eaten there once before, also by myself on that occasion, and I remembered it as a place where I could relax, take my time over the meal, drink some soothing tea, and reflect without interruption.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Dining Alone"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;m forcing myself to write, simply because I haven\u0026rsquo;t in so long. The ironic thing is, of course, that there\u0026rsquo;s no lack of things to write about. In fact, as an interesting historical note of particular relevancy, I even made a little sticky of some topics to blog about at one point, since I thought they were good topics. Now this is something I\u0026rsquo;ve never done, so I was pretty sure that I would get around to writing about these topics, seeing as I\u0026rsquo;d made a reminder to do that and all. No luck!\nOne of those topics was the death of apologetics as a useful Christian enterprise\u0026ndash;not that we no longer need to study it, but that it is no longer sufficient on its own to do any real good for the world. I won\u0026rsquo;t get into my reasons for thinking this (which would take a real weblog entry that I don\u0026rsquo;t feel like writing), but instead note that thinking about this topic was occasioned by going through my old e-mails. You see, I\u0026rsquo;ve kept every e-mail I\u0026rsquo;ve ever sent or received since early 1999. For some reason, I felt like switching from Entourage to Mail 2.0 as my default e-mail client, and so I had to import my Entourage folders into Mail. Mail started importing, but as the e-mail count reached 20,000 before the progress indicator got to 50%, I decided that some cleaning up was in order.\nI went back to Entourage and decided to go through all my archived e-mails and permanently delete the unimportant ones\u0026ndash;you know, the mass mailings, the spam, and the like. Let me tell you, going through thousands of e-mail messages by hand is not a quick or easy task. But it had some fringe benefits. I got to skim over a lot of the things I wrote and received in the process, and some of it was shocking. Not so much because it was bad, but because it exhibited a personality and a faith which are so very different from those I have now. Anyway, much of my time in 1999 and 2000 was devoted to studying and disseminating apologetic concepts, so much so that in a number of e-mails I wrote to people about my Stanford acceptance, I claimed that the only reason I was going was to set up an apologetics ministry to those \u0026ldquo;smart kids\u0026rdquo;.\nI read stuff like that and smiled\u0026hellip;such passion and naive pride, unaware of the events that were to unfold which would cause a revolution in how I saw God, my faith, and even (in particular) my reasons for being at Stanford. Now, after 5 years of intense study, I hope (and think) I\u0026rsquo;ve come away with a more healthy and humble view of my ability to desire and understand truth.\nSo there\u0026rsquo;s an example of some of the things I\u0026rsquo;ve been wanting to write about. I\u0026rsquo;ve also wanted to log some recent events in my usual over-flowery prose, for posterity. I can\u0026rsquo;t recall when the last time I really wrote anything of substance was, but since then I\u0026rsquo;ve flown back and forth to Florida a number of times, once for my brother Dav\u0026rsquo;s graduation from the University of Florida. It was a wonderful time, and I was proud of him\u0026ndash;he double-majored in philosophy and political science, in only three years!\nOf note, my whole family came out here to San Francisco a few weeks ago, and we had a retreat of sorts that lasted 3 or 4 days. We spent some time up in Napa, and even had this complete health spa experience, replete with mud bath, mineral bath, sauna, massage, etc\u0026hellip; It was absolutely incredible, though of course overpriced. We were also able to do some hiking in Muir woods, watch the Godfather trilogy, hang out at our apartment in SF, and have a good number of philosophical/theological conversations. At any rate, it was a much-needed break and together-time for all of us, despite the philosophical conversations.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve also started flying back to Orlando (from my rather undefined home here in East Palo Alto / Palo Alto) for about a week a month, in order to check in to the Teleios (no longer Excelsis) office. This last week was one of those weeks, and I spent it holed away in Pavi\u0026rsquo;s office, coding like mad. It felt good to sprint for awhile, especially since I\u0026rsquo;ve felt recently like I\u0026rsquo;ve been more or less treading water with work. Well, no more! I\u0026rsquo;ve got enough on my plate now to last me to July. What\u0026rsquo;s better, it\u0026rsquo;s stuff that I enjoy thinking about\u0026ndash;very creative app design stuff with which the details of which I won\u0026rsquo;t bore you.\nUnfortunately, this is where the brightness and happiness ends. For some reason, the last month or so has had more than its share of hardships (relatively speaking, of course\u0026ndash;emotionally, I\u0026rsquo;m sure I have things easier than just about anyone else). Of some note are the physical ones: I\u0026rsquo;ve had a pretty high standard for my physical ability recently, particularly in the areas of rock climbing, running, and ultimate frisbee. Unfortunately, a sort of recurring knee injury has come back in full force and severely limited my ability for and the enjoyment of those activities. That, and I\u0026rsquo;m beginning to think that my computing habits are taking their toll on my neck, back, and hands, and wreaking all sorts of havoc. Then there is a laundry list of other minor things that are wrong with me from head to toe, all of which I should have seen a physician about months ago, but have been putting it off. That\u0026rsquo;s got to change.\nI haven\u0026rsquo;t touched my guitar or keyboard in a few weeks, and I\u0026rsquo;ve been feeling decidedly un-creative. I\u0026rsquo;ve got to use creativity for work projects, and for some other things I\u0026rsquo;ve been developing, but I\u0026rsquo;ve been frustrated with my lack of artistic progress. I have so many things in my head that I feel would make worthwhile songs, but every time I sit down to write lyrics or otherwise solidify the idea, I\u0026rsquo;m unsatisfied. The idea is either too cynical or not cynical enough. Not original enough. Too inauthentic. Or any other of a number of things which make me despair.\nBut most importantly, things with community out here have been more frustrating than normal. As you know, I moved back out to Stanford in January to work with a community of friends on how we can be church, in some meaningful and important sense which we\u0026rsquo;ve been trying to discover together. One idea we were throwing around was whether we should try and get one big place and all live in it together, reminiscent of monasticism, or the early church, which everyone is so fond of pointing at. We\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about this idea, and how it could fit in with our larger goals and values, for a number of months now. I was a pretty big proponent of the plan, for a number of reasons, and despite all the trials I foresaw as a result of it. In our discussions, it seemed like people (roughly 8 of us) were excited about the idea and open to moving forward with it.\nLast week we had a meeting to make a decision once and for all on the issue, because we couldn\u0026rsquo;t put off looking for housing any longer if we were going to do it. And all of a sudden, the idea kind of fell apart. For a few not-bad reasons, some people had to say they couldn\u0026rsquo;t be a part of it, and as a result others couldn\u0026rsquo;t (it\u0026rsquo;s complicated), and as a result, poof! It was gone. Not just \u0026ldquo;it\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;the dream was gone. Now, I have to trust the process we went through, and I have to realize that the community house idea was an idea which was always only meant to be ancillary to the larger community vision which all of us still share. Still, I saw it as something which would particularly challenge and grow us and push us towards realizing that vision, while challenging societal norms, being provocative, etc\u0026hellip;\nAdd to that a general lack of momentum with community things (various events which we were trying to hold regularly just haven\u0026rsquo;t happened, and none of us have really been pushing forward to make them happen, whether because of being out of town or being busy or whatever), and it\u0026rsquo;s kind of depressing. For the first time since November, I\u0026rsquo;m sensing a real lack of excitement amongst us. I can\u0026rsquo;t decide where this is coming from, but it\u0026rsquo;s not fun and I\u0026rsquo;m not sure how to proceed. It\u0026rsquo;s a hard time of the year, anyway\u0026ndash;many of us are finishing school and moving away, others are going away temporarily, yet others are going on small trips here and there\u0026hellip; So there\u0026rsquo;s a real practical inability to be committed in the way that I would want us to be, and without that the whole heart of the community suffers.\nMy heart also decided it would be a good time to wrestle with its nemesis\u0026ndash;love. Or the lack of it. Or the desire for it. Or the misunderstanding of it. Or all of the above. There\u0026rsquo;s no need to detail my inner train of thought whenever my mind happens to alight on something which relates to love (which is about, oh, every 5 milliseconds). I\u0026rsquo;m sure it\u0026rsquo;s more or less the same for everyone. What\u0026rsquo;s interesting, and frustrating, is that I feel I\u0026rsquo;ve never been so (a) desirous of love, and (b) desirous of not desiring love in the way I have been desiring it, at the same time. The first is easy to understand. Everyone goes through that at some point, some more than others (let my bitterness tell you in which camp I belong).\nThe second is a bit harder, but part of it comes from a realization that most of the pain I experience is a result of my chasing after love without heeding wisdom or the possibility that I am likely blinding myself on some things just in order to have a chase. This leads to a distrust of the heart.\nI\u0026rsquo;m left in the very uncomfortable position of desperately dreaming of love and feeling ready to begin to explore it in the way that it is meant to be explored, and yet realizing that anything I myself do towards that end is likely to be unwise, deluded, and futile. It\u0026rsquo;s like\u0026hellip;say you\u0026rsquo;re a runner, and there are runners all around you heading towards the finish line. So you\u0026rsquo;re pretty sure that you\u0026rsquo;re supposed to be heading towards this finish line too, but you know that if you take one more step, your legs will fall off, thus preventing you from reaching the line. So you stop, but that means you don\u0026rsquo;t get there, just the same as if your legs had fallen off.\nThe answer? You need someone to carry you. But that depends on someone else. And my mind can\u0026rsquo;t think someone else into being, or think them into carrying me. Thus, impasse. And a bit of frustration with the Someone that is most obviously into carrying people, that he is apparently not.\nAnyway, enough ramblings for now. I should go to bed, and hope for a different view tomorrow (view of tomorrow).\nBut before I do, some albums to check out that I recently got:\nThe Forgotten Arm, by Aimee Mann Funeral, by The Arcade Fire On My Way to Absence, by Damien Jurado Picaresque, by The Decemberists Headphones, by the Headphones Woman King, by Iron and Wine The Everglow, by Mae Summer in Abaddon, by Pinback Talking Voice vs. Singing Voice, by Starflyer 59 Yes, that does mean my horrendous CD-buying habits are back.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/05/may-2005-in-a-somewhat-disorganized-review/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;m forcing myself to write, simply because I haven\u0026rsquo;t in so long. The ironic thing is, of course, that there\u0026rsquo;s no lack of things to write about. In fact, as an interesting historical note of particular relevancy, I even made a little sticky of some topics to blog about at one point, since I thought they were good topics. Now this is something I\u0026rsquo;ve never done, so I was pretty sure that I would get around to writing about these topics, seeing as I\u0026rsquo;d made a reminder to do that and all. No luck!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"May 2005 In a Somewhat Disorganized Review"},{"content":"I went and saw Sin City last week with Nick and Justin, and the various stories of grotesque evil followed by equally-grotesque vigilante justice sparked a rather deep conversation about the concept of justice with respect to God (our particularly [orthodox] Christian view, that is), and how this relates to the justice actually (or propagandistically, as the case may be) being done in the world, including everything from incarceration to the death penalty to the invasion of Iraq to World War II.\nWe had a regular, rousing philosophical discussion, and I was glad to once again be defining terms and weighing the morality / consistency of whatever actions we were considering. Despite my decision not to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, it seems I haven\u0026rsquo;t lost the taste for it entirely. Anyway, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to talk about that discussion per se, but instead one of the paradoxical conclusions we came to as a result.\nBasically, there is a deep sense in which God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, and Lord of all life, is unsatisfied. There is a deep sense in which he is sad. At first glance, this looks contradictory; how can a being who is wholly x (where x is any positive property), experience dissatisfaction or sadness? How could he experience pain? Doesn\u0026rsquo;t a perfect existence preclude pain? Certainly our (well, American Christianity\u0026rsquo;s) concept of heaven, as a state of unending perfect existence, doesn\u0026rsquo;t usually come with pain.\nOur answer, as you might expect, had to do with the self-limiting nature of creating beings with truly free wills (which in itself is an area ripe for exploration, and gives new and tremendously insightful meaning to Christ \u0026ldquo;humbling himself and taking the nature of a servant\u0026rdquo;). But as I was reading Kierkegaard (his Philosophical Fragments) today, I stumbled upon another understanding, which has the sorrow of God as being, not merely the logical result of having to share the will space, but actually essential to his character\u0026ndash;a result of his deep love for us. This isn\u0026rsquo;t particularly related to the question of justice, but I think it is even deeper. Here\u0026rsquo;s a passage:\nNot in this manner, then, can their love be made happy, except perhaps in appearance, i.e. in the learner\u0026rsquo;s and the maiden\u0026rsquo;s eyes, but not in the Teacher\u0026rsquo;s and the king\u0026rsquo;s, whom no delusion can satisfy.\n(Here, \u0026ldquo;love\u0026rdquo; refers to the love of a king for a humble maiden in a story referenced earlier, and the love of God for us, which was the analogical purpose of the king/maiden story. The talk of delusion goes back to the point of this part of the work, which is to attempt an answer to the question of how the king (God) could ever be sure of the humble maiden\u0026rsquo;s (our) love for him, and how their love is mutually understandable)\nThus God takes pleasure in arraying the lily in a garb more glorious than that of Solomon; but if there could be any thought of an understanding here, would it not be a sorry delusion of the lily\u0026rsquo;s, if when it looked upon its fine raiment it thought that it was on account of the raiment that God loved it? Instead of standing dauntless in the field, sporting with the wind, carefree as the gust that blows, would it not under the influence of such a thought languish and droop, not daring to lift up its head? It was God\u0026rsquo;s solicitude to prevent this, for the lily\u0026rsquo;s shoot is tender and easily broken. But if the Moment is to have decisive significance, how unspeakable will be God\u0026rsquo;s anxiety!\n(The \u0026ldquo;Moment\u0026rdquo; is a complicated concept to elucidate, and it is what the whole work is about. Basically, it is about how we come to know eternally True things. Socrates\u0026rsquo; view was that it is impossible to seek to know Truth, because if you already know it you cannot seek to know it, and if you do not know it, you do not know what you are seeking. His resolution is that we all have Truth latent within us, and it just needs to be \u0026ldquo;remembered\u0026rdquo;. Socrates, in his own view, simply helped people to remember in this way\u0026ndash;he did not teach them in any real sense. Kierkegaard\u0026rsquo;s observation is that this act of remembering is much less significant than a deep \u0026ldquo;coming to know\u0026rdquo;, and so it minimizes the moment in which you \u0026ldquo;remembered\u0026rdquo; it. In other words, real conversion would be impossible! So Kierkegaard tries to think of another paradigm of Truth, where it is not latent within us but we are actively running away from it, as a result of free choice. The Moment gains significance now, in that we need a Teacher who will not just provide us with the stimulus to realize Truth, or the content of Truth, but must even give us the ability to comprehend it!)\nBut here\u0026rsquo;s the part I liked the most:\nThere once lived a people who had a profound understanding of the divine; this people thought that no man could see God and live.\u0026ndash;Who grasps this contradiction of sorrow: not to reveal oneself is the death of love, to reveal oneself is the death of the beloved! The minds of men so often yearn for might and power, and their thoughts are constantly being drawn to such things, as if by their attainment all mysteries would be resolved. Hence they do not even dream that there is sorrow in heaven as well as joy, the deep grief of having to deny the learner what he yearns for with all his heart, of having to deny him precisely because he is the beloved.\nSo we have here a fundamental paradox (or tension if you think paradox means contradiction) in the heart of God. Love demands that the lovers unite, and share their love! But the ontological inequality of humans and God (i.e., the humble maiden and the glorious king) demands that the king not reveal himself to the maiden, lest his magnificence destroy her (or worse, cause the magnificence to be the object of her love and not the king himself, which is again the death of love). It looks like God has a self-destructive goal: to unite with us in love entails that we (or the love) are destroyed, but if we are destroyed, there is no one with which to unite! What incredible sorrow this must be.\nWhat is God\u0026rsquo;s response to this tension? To \u0026ldquo;not consider equality with God something to be grasped\u0026rdquo;, to become more humble than any human being (with \u0026ldquo;no place to rest his head\u0026rdquo;), in order to win our hearts in such a way that (a) our response of love is not a delusion, and (b) we are not destroyed.\nWell, I wanted to share that because I don\u0026rsquo;t think I ponder often enough the humility of God, even the tentativeness that comes across here in the analogy of human love\u0026ndash;in Kierkegaard\u0026rsquo;s terminology a care not to offend us. There is something central to our faith here, and it is, I think, the primary take-home point of the Incarnation\u0026ndash;God took the nature, not just of a human, but of a servant. God, himself, put himself at our service, in the most humble way possible (dying), in order to ask for our love. And this was the only way to do it so that both he and we would be satisfied that our love is real, and not an illusion.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/04/sorrow-in-heaven/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI went and saw \u003cem\u003eSin City\u003c/em\u003e last week with Nick and Justin, and the various stories of grotesque evil followed by equally-grotesque vigilante justice sparked a rather deep conversation about the concept of justice with respect to God (our particularly [orthodox] Christian view, that is), and how this relates to the justice actually (or propagandistically, as the case may be) being done in the world, including everything from incarceration to the death penalty to the invasion of Iraq to World War II.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Sorrow in Heaven"},{"content":"In the last month I\u0026rsquo;ve spent some time every now and then working on a little Mac app project. The time has come to unveil it, along with its new website! Go there now: iRateTunes.\nSorry, PC folks\u0026ndash;this is a Mac OS X-only application. And moreover, I don\u0026rsquo;t imagine that it will be extremely useful for everybody. But, if you ever want to rate your entire library, it will save you precious seconds many times over, equalling a great increase in efficiency. I\u0026rsquo;ve found it to be so, anyway.\nWell, I\u0026rsquo;d appreciate any comments if anyone happens to try it out!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/04/iratetunes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the last month I\u0026rsquo;ve spent some time every now and then working on a little Mac app project. The time has come to unveil it, along with its new website! Go there now: \u003ca href=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/iratetunes\"\u003eiRateTunes\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSorry, PC folks\u0026ndash;this is a Mac OS X-only application. And moreover, I don\u0026rsquo;t imagine that it will be extremely useful for everybody. But, if you ever want to rate your entire library, it will save you precious seconds many times over, equalling a great increase in efficiency. I\u0026rsquo;ve found it to be so, anyway.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"iRateTunes"},{"content":"I ended up in Gainesville, FL this weekend to hang out with my brother Dav. We hadn\u0026rsquo;t recorded anything in a long time, so we decided to do a little project with a song I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on for an upcoming concept album. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t really have a title, but I figure it\u0026rsquo;ll probably be the second part of a story, so we\u0026rsquo;re calling it Chapter II.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s kind of funny\u0026ndash;I left my nice guitar in California, so we recorded using Dav\u0026rsquo;s cheap Yamaha, and we\u0026rsquo;re in a small apartment so we couldn\u0026rsquo;t record acoustic drums, hence the electronic ones, but it turned out to be one of our better recordings! I think we\u0026rsquo;re finally getting the hang of this process. No bass or anything yet; it\u0026rsquo;ll come when we record the song for real to go with an album. But for now enjoy it, and let us know what you think.\nChapter II\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/04/chapter-ii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI ended up in Gainesville, FL this weekend to hang out with my brother Dav. We hadn\u0026rsquo;t recorded anything in a long time, so we decided to do a little project with a song I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on for an upcoming concept album. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t really have a title, but I figure it\u0026rsquo;ll probably be the second part of a story, so we\u0026rsquo;re calling it Chapter II.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt\u0026rsquo;s kind of funny\u0026ndash;I left my nice guitar in California, so we recorded using Dav\u0026rsquo;s cheap Yamaha, and we\u0026rsquo;re in a small apartment so we couldn\u0026rsquo;t record acoustic drums, hence the electronic ones, but it turned out to be one of our better recordings! I think we\u0026rsquo;re finally getting the hang of this process. No bass or anything yet; it\u0026rsquo;ll come when we record the song for real to go with an album. But for now enjoy it, and let us know what you think.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Chapter II"},{"content":"In years past, i.e., the last two, I\u0026rsquo;ve done something creative as my act of commemorating the significance of Easter Sunday. Last year, I wrote a song, and two years ago I wrote two stories (published betterly here). This year, I did not have it in me to do anything so wonderful. Instead, I rode up to Russian Ridge with a group of friends and saw the sunrise atop a green wind-blasted hill, where we could survey the whole bay below. From that height, the peninsula looked clean and fresh and sinless, full of hope and potential. The Dumbarton bridge appeared ghostly and beautiful, a thin testament to the humble works of man\u0026ndash;much different than the overbearing, ugly, crowded aspect it has up close during the day.\nI realized that this must be how God can choose to see the world\u0026ndash;not just as better than it is, but as it actually will be, redeemed and full. No fire and charring of the elements, maybe\u0026ndash;I believe, right now, that God\u0026rsquo;s redemption and revolution will come in a way we do not expect; it will come from the inside out. Just as Christ died and was transformed, not destroyed, into something new and magnificent that heralded the truth and the promise for the rest of humanity, so the entire world will be remade, not undone. In a way, of course, remaking is undoing, and it is in this sense that the old heaven and the old earth will pass away. But they will pass away, leaving in their places, not new versions of themselves, but themselves, new.\nAt this point in my reverie, the sun broke over the eastward hills, brilliant and uncontrollably powerful, turning everything that was colorless (bloodless) and ghostly (dead) colorful and alive, full-bodied and recklessly physical, joyful and singing. The world around me was resurrected in a commemorative play that God had instructed his creation to perform, acting out the Resurrection that happened to one man long ago, and that will one day happen to each of us, and each blade of grass, and each far-flung star, if we keep hope alive.\nJust as soon as it came, the moment, that window into God\u0026rsquo;s promises, passed with the sun behind the gray clouds that were to obscure it for the rest of the day. Though the warmth of the memory remained to comfort me in the chilly cold of the morning, the veiling of the light was a reminder that the time we hope for is still not yet, and all that we can experience for now are previews\u0026ndash;previews that change the world, but previews nonetheless. The real show will come later, and at that time we will see the real playwright\u0026rsquo;s best work, and we will all of us drop to our knees in awe, because that work will be love for us, demonstrated mysteriously (openly) from the beginning of time until its end.\nIn other words, HE IS RISEN INDEED, and this curious, absurd truth is the only thing that can give us hope for ourselves and the rest of the world, because it is oftentimes the only thing we can point to where creation has gone the right way, the way it was supposed to go; that is, sans death. 2,000 years of time and, more effectively, our own various doubts, muddle that picture for us, but we cling however tenuously to it, knowing that, not just is the world without this hope a cold and hard place (in fact, our hope does little to change that many times), but, indeed, without this hope there is no world at all, no sense for even our doubts.\nAnd that is why, incidentally, I believe it\u0026ndash;because of the difference between eighteen seconds before sunrise, and eighteen seconds after.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/03/easter-2005/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn years past, i.e., the last two, I\u0026rsquo;ve done something creative as my act of commemorating the significance of Easter Sunday. Last year, I wrote \u003ca href=\"/2004/04/he-is-risen/\"\u003ea song\u003c/a\u003e, and two years ago I wrote \u003ca href=\"/2003/04/friday/\"\u003etwo\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca href=\"/2003/04/sunday/\"\u003estories\u003c/a\u003e (published betterly \u003ca href=\"http://www.divinity-school.com/archives/article.html?articleid=12\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e). This year, I did not have it in me to do anything so wonderful. Instead, I rode up to Russian Ridge with a group of friends and saw the sunrise atop a green wind-blasted hill, where we could survey the whole bay below. From that height, the peninsula looked clean and fresh and sinless, full of hope and potential. The Dumbarton bridge appeared ghostly and beautiful, a thin testament to the humble works of man\u0026ndash;much different than the overbearing, ugly, crowded aspect it has up close during the day.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Easter 2005"},{"content":"The \u0026ldquo;Fellowship\u0026rdquo; of the Believers 42They devoted themselves to Rick Warren\u0026rsquo;s teaching and to the megachurch parking-lot traverse, to the breaking of small tasteless crackers and to special music. 43Everyone was filled with boredom, and no wonders or miraculous signs were done by anyone at all. 44All the believers were isolated and had nothing in common. 45Hoarding their possessions and goods, they gave erratically, and only out of guilty feelings. 46Every once in a while they carefully exited their suburban mansions, going to one of a million disparate meeting places, and avoided eye contact with the people around them. They broke bread in their cars on the way to soccer practice and ate apart from one another with troubled and lonely hearts, 47wondering where God was and suffering both the scorn and the indifference of the people. And the Lord took away from their number daily those who believed.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/02/acts-242-47-modern-american-version/","summary":"\u003ch4 id=\"the-fellowship-of-the-believers\"\u003eThe \u0026ldquo;Fellowship\u0026rdquo; of the Believers\u003c/h4\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e42They devoted themselves to Rick Warren\u0026rsquo;s teaching and to the megachurch parking-lot traverse, to the breaking of small tasteless crackers and to special music. 43Everyone was filled with boredom, and no wonders or miraculous signs were done by anyone at all. 44All the believers were isolated and had nothing in common. 45Hoarding their possessions and goods, they gave erratically, and only out of guilty feelings. 46Every once in a while they carefully exited their suburban mansions, going to one of a million disparate meeting places, and avoided eye contact with the people around them. They broke bread in their cars on the way to soccer practice and ate apart from one another with troubled and lonely hearts, 47wondering where God was and suffering both the scorn and the indifference of the people. And the Lord took away from their number daily those who believed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e","title":"Acts 2:42-47 (Modern American Version)"},{"content":"You may recall from a few entries ago that, due to a number of circumstances which ended up with me back at Stanford for a few weeks, I have been thinking of moving back to California to start and help lead a new faith-community with a bunch of my friends and former schoolmates. Well, since life is short and action seemed to be required, I went ahead and made the decision to head back out west!\nIt was both a short and a long process, from different perspectives. From my perspective, however, I engaged in it (the decision-making process, that is) for exactly the right time\u0026ndash;long enough to be sure of my motives and the commitment of myself and those others who would be involved in the community, but short enough to be sure that the idea, the dream, didn\u0026rsquo;t die of suffocation while I dawdled about second-guessing the feasibility of the proposition. I also feel that I was able to involve lots of different people in the process\u0026ndash;all of my family (including a lot of extended family), friends from California and friends from elsewhere, and co-workers. The result of our conversations was consistently a feeling that, while there is no guarantee of longevity or success for a community like the one we want to start, there would be nothing worse than failing to at least try it\u0026ndash;idealism tempered with a sort of jolly and familiar understanding of potential failure.\nIn sum, I had two options\u0026ndash;to go, or not to go\u0026ndash;and the first appeared to all my senses to be faith, while the second just had a vague smell of the safety provided by fear and reluctance. With that opposition in front of me, the choice became much clearer.\nSo, early in February, after my last trip out to Stanford, I met with my boss Pavi to discuss the conclusion I\u0026rsquo;d come to in my thinking. I don\u0026rsquo;t know if I mentioned this before, but Pavi had been a part of the process from beginning to end with me, and so was in a good position to comment on how I was going about it, and to help with his own wisdom (since he has been and is engaged with community projects like the one we\u0026rsquo;re envisioning). We discussed what it would look like with respect to Excelsis if I were to move out to California, and decided that it would be hard. This is where, with any other boss, the door would have been closed and I would have been forced to decide between California and Excelsis\u0026ndash;the two things which are the most important to me (in terms of what I feel like I am supposed to be doing in life) at the moment. Pavi\u0026rsquo;s response, on the other hand, was: well, what can we do? I guess we\u0026rsquo;ll have to try it and work through the difficulties as best we can.\nIn other words, I was given the official freedom to retain my job and work long-distance from Palo Alto! For me, this was the last piece of this puzzle that needed to come together; I was set to go. So, last Monday (the 7th of February), I had a goodbye lunch of sorts with my team at work, and explained what I was doing and why. With their encouragement for the future, I packed up some key things from my office and took them home in the anticipation that they would give the office to someone else soon. It was a bit sad, and I hadn\u0026rsquo;t planned on it happening so quickly, but I had a flight to San Jose the next day.\nSo, crazy as it seems, I moved back to California on the 8th, with just the few pieces of luggage I could fit on the plane. Since I didn\u0026rsquo;t have an apartment or anything yet, I left most of my belongings in Florida, figuring I could fly back and drive with them in my car back to Stanford whenever it was appropriate. The timing so far has been pretty fortunate\u0026ndash;my friend Erin is gone to Peru this month, so I am able to stay in her room, help her out with some rent, and have a home base while I get my feet under me here and start to look for my own place. Currently, the plan is to fly back to Orlando on the first of March, pack up my car, and do the 3,000-mile drive back, so that I am more permanently situated on the west coast.\nThis first week has flown by pretty fast, and I am adjusting to working at home (which is pretty nice\u0026ndash;I can roll out of bed and be working on my powerbook in about 30 seconds, while some fresh tea is brewing and some Eggos are in the toaster or something). Sometime in the next few weeks, community stuff will hopefully similarly roll out of bed, ready to hit the ground running. The benefit of my previous trip to California was that a few of us here were able to have a retreat of sorts and strategize some concrete plans for where we need to go and what we need to do with our community in these first, crucial months. So I am looking forward to a crazy, awesome, and likely difficult time with getting all that going.\nBut mostly, I have had one consistent feeling: it is good to be home!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/02/california/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eYou may recall from a few entries ago that, due to a number of circumstances which ended up with me back at Stanford for a few weeks, I have been thinking of moving back to California to start and help lead a new faith-community with a bunch of my friends and former schoolmates. Well, since life is short and action seemed to be required, I went ahead and made the decision to head back out west!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"California"},{"content":"\nWhat you see before you is none other than the greatest meal I have ever created. Yes, it is sweet and sour chicken (on a bed of fluffy jasmine rice, no less!). What makes it an accomplishment is the fact that I whipped up this delectable treat completely from scratch. I deep fried the chicken in a pot of molten lava (er, oil)\u0026ndash;which was a first for me (and there are some parts of my arms that don\u0026rsquo;t have oil burns on them)! I even made the syrupy sweet and sour sauce all by myself! (Who knew the \u0026ldquo;sour\u0026rdquo; part came from vinegar?)\nOh, and yes, that is Guinness sitting at the right hand of the plate (which, as everyone knows, is the place of honor for any esteemed beverage).\nI hope you enjoyed this foray into the unexplored territory of my skills with pots, pans, and hot insoluble substances! If you\u0026rsquo;re lucky, there won\u0026rsquo;t be many more. I suppose, moreover, that the fact that this simple meal is my crowning achievement, the recounting of which being worthy of cluttering the blogosphere, proves only that I have far, far to go before I can consider myself an adept of the gustatory art.\n(I.e., I have more important stuff to write about, but not enough time, so I\u0026rsquo;m showing you what I ate for dinner). Stay tuned.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/02/a-culinary-masterpiece-of-insane-proportions/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/weblog/photos/sweetnsour.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat you see before you is none other than the greatest meal I have ever created. Yes, it is sweet and sour chicken (on a bed of fluffy jasmine rice, no less!). What makes it an accomplishment is the fact that I whipped up this delectable treat completely from scratch. I deep fried the chicken in a pot of molten lava (er, oil)\u0026ndash;which was a first for me (and there are some parts of my arms that don\u0026rsquo;t have oil burns on them)! I even made the syrupy sweet and sour sauce all by myself! (Who knew the \u0026ldquo;sour\u0026rdquo; part came from vinegar?)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A Culinary Masterpiece of Insane Proportions"},{"content":"I felt like going for a long run yesterday, since I\u0026rsquo;d rested a few days since my last run, and since I\u0026rsquo;d been running pretty consistently before that. The runs I\u0026rsquo;d been doing were about 4 miles each, and I\u0026rsquo;d been focusing more on speed than distance, trying to hit the magic 7:00 average per-mile pace which I\u0026rsquo;m always after for that distance.\nA lot of the reason for my consistency in running recently (and by consistency I just mean running more than once a week) has to do with a cool gadget which my folks gave me for Christmas. It\u0026rsquo;s a Nike Triax CV10, which consists of a watch, a heart-rate monitor chest strap, and a foot pod which goes on one\u0026rsquo;s shoe. Together these devices allow me to know up-to-the-instant data on heart rate, pace, distance, whether or not I\u0026rsquo;m in certain \u0026ldquo;training zones\u0026rdquo; which I can set, etc\u0026hellip;\nMost of the features are a bit overkill, since I\u0026rsquo;m not really training for anything and don\u0026rsquo;t have a real reason to monitor my heart rate closely; however the pace/distance features are really useful.\nAnyway, so I\u0026rsquo;d been running a bit more than usual, and I ate a lot of carbohydrates this week, so I figured I could handle a long run. I planned on going about 8 miles, got all dressed up in my spandex and climacool shirt (it was pretty chilly outside for Florida, and it was drizzling), and connected my gadgets (sans heart-rate strap because I figured on a long run it might irritate me).\nWell, the gray drizzle was actually awesome to run in, as it kept me nice and cool\u0026ndash;so I settled into a moderate pace and enjoyed myself, after experiencing some stomach pains the first couple miles, due to the large Italian meat and pepper sub sandwich I\u0026rsquo;d had for lunch\u0026hellip;the thought of running on that is pretty nauseating to me even now.\nAbout mile 4 or 5, when I started to relax into the rhythm of what I was doing, it occurred to me that, if I felt up to it, I could try and run farther than 8 miles\u0026ndash;I could run 10! In fact, why run only 10 when 3 more would get me to 13, which was basically a half-marathon? The thought got me kind of excited, because I\u0026rsquo;d never run that far before, and moreover had considered training for half-marathon races in the past. Well, it was a good day, I was feeling strong; why not just get it done with now?\nSo that\u0026rsquo;s more or less what I did\u0026ndash;I ran 13.2 miles, though for many of them my vision was somewhat off due to the rain and/or condensation on my glasses. I\u0026rsquo;m glad I didn\u0026rsquo;t run into any cars or stationary objects! And, thanks to God, my knees and joints and muscles and tendons all held together for the most part\u0026ndash;telling me they hated me once in a while, but never giving out completely (which has happened in the past, and which puts a halt to any lofty goals!). Moreover, my blood sugar level seemed to do OK, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t get too dehydrated (thanks to the cooler weather and the rain, I think). So it was a fortunate run.\nAll told, I did the 13.2 miles (though a real half-marathon is only 13.1, I believe) in 1h50m. That\u0026rsquo;s an average pace of 8m24s per mile. To me, that was a pretty big accomplishment\u0026ndash;not only did I run farther than ever before, I did so at what I consider to be a respectable pace. On top of that, for the most part my mile splits got shorter as time went on, meaning it probably wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be too hard to improve considerably on that time.\nWell, I just wanted to write all that for posterity. On that note, here are the mile splits:\nMile****Time18m37s28m54s38m49s48m46s58m28s68m28s78m21s88m16s98m19s108m14s117m58s128m11s137m49s13.21m29s\n(There was a strong headwind going eastbound on the path I took, so that is usually what accounts for any increase in times.)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/01/half-marathon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI felt like going for a long run yesterday, since I\u0026rsquo;d rested a few days since my last run, and since I\u0026rsquo;d been running pretty consistently before that. The runs I\u0026rsquo;d been doing were about 4 miles each, and I\u0026rsquo;d been focusing more on speed than distance, trying to hit the magic 7:00 average per-mile pace which I\u0026rsquo;m always after for that distance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lot of the reason for my consistency in running recently (and by consistency I just mean running more than once a week) has to do with a cool gadget which my folks gave me for Christmas. It\u0026rsquo;s a Nike Triax CV10, which consists of a watch, a heart-rate monitor chest strap, and a foot pod which goes on one\u0026rsquo;s shoe. Together these devices allow me to know up-to-the-instant data on heart rate, pace, distance, whether or not I\u0026rsquo;m in certain \u0026ldquo;training zones\u0026rdquo; which I can set, etc\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Half-Marathon"},{"content":"(\u0026hellip;and a tiny bit of 2005)\nWARNING: This will be very long. Feel free to read it in chunks, if you wish. Now, you may proceed, with caution.\nThere were two more hurricanes in 2004, one in early September (in fact this may be the same as the one I described in the last entry; I\u0026rsquo;m getting my dates muddled). But if so I\u0026rsquo;ll talk about a different significance of it. You see, there\u0026rsquo;s something I haven\u0026rsquo;t been mentioning in all these stories: a girl. In fact, a girl who worked at Excelsis, and had done so since the previous summer (of 2003), when I met her. For various reasons which I\u0026rsquo;d find it tedious to go into, I thought she was really cool and was attracted to her. So, when I found out senior year that I would be moving back to Orlando for work, I was excited about the possibility of a relationship with this girl.\nAccordingly, I spent a lot of time, once I moved back, getting to know her and generally making it obvious that I was interested. At times she seemed to have caught on to the fact, and at times she seemed oblivious\u0026ndash;to the point where my over-analytic mind wavered between deciding that she was just unaware of my feelings, and therefore I should make them more obvious, and on the other hand that she was more than aware, and simply not interested herself.\nWell, after a few months of this, and just a lot of vague tension and awkwardness in the air whenever we would hang out, we were talking during that early September hurricane. The conversation got to a point where we were talking about romantic relationships for some reason, and so the context was ripe for innuendo. And innuendos did indeed fly\u0026ndash;so clearly, in fact, that I was almost 100% certain that my second guess above was right\u0026ndash;she knew what I was thinking, but was not interested herself. So there it was\u0026ndash;door closed on the possibility of a relationship.\nI was pretty bummed out and disappointed for a few days, but in reality felt more foolish for letting my heart get so into the possibility of a relationship than sad about or angry with her. In the end I felt much better, without this cloud of vague uncertainty always hanging around\u0026ndash;I felt freed, and a bit cleansed. In fact, silly though it is, it was essentially an imaginary breakup. That\u0026rsquo;s how much my mind gets carried away!\nAnyway, I didn\u0026rsquo;t have too much time to think about it, because just a few days later, I went to Spain! I\u0026rsquo;d flown through Madrid before, but had never had time to wander around, so the prospect of a week and a half in Madrid and Barcelona was enticing, especially given circumstances just mentioned. I was traveling with my parents, the larger half of which had business there (in fact, it was my fifth time to go on this annual trip with my parents\u0026ndash;previous destinations included France, England, Ireland, and Portugal). We spent a few days before the business meetings in Madrid, hanging around, eating dinner at 10pm, drinking one of the two kinds of beer, or preferably sangria de cava, having a go at various tapas, and so forth.\nThe meetings were in Barcelona, and we were set up in an awesome hotel in the shopping district. Some of my Dad\u0026rsquo;s colleagues had brought a kid as well, including one Laura whom I\u0026rsquo;d hung out with on previous trips. Moreover, since my awesome pal Nate Akers, from Orlando, who sort of randomly knew Laura (who goes to Cal Poly), was in Italy for a semester abroad, he hopped on a plane and came to Barcelona to chill with Laura and I. So, I spent most of the days wandering miles and miles of the Barcelona streets with Nate and Laura or my parents and their friends. It was incredibly relaxing, not to mention the insane dinners that were thrown at us every evening. Time with my folks was very positive, too, as I was able to talk about everything that was going on in my life at great depth, including my endless (i.e., endlessly overrated and whined-about) struggles with the females. My folks, being wise people, were able to give me lots of helpful comments there.\nWell, enough about Barcelona. I already put a photo album of sorts online, so instead of adding pictures here, I\u0026rsquo;ll just link to that: Spain Photo Album. Some pretty good photos in there, including the one from which I made the new banner at the top of this page! (It was from the inside of La Sagrada Familia).\nAbout the time I got back from Spain, I was finishing up on transcriptions for Excelsis (I\u0026rsquo;d actually been doing a lot of that in Spain on my laptop, believe it or not). This was cause for much rejoicing, despite the fact that I absolutely loved the material I was transcribing. My next project was to be designing and implementing the web application which would serve as not only a helper application to the Excelsis desktop client, but also as a gateway into the course material and a stockpile of community tools for those taking Excelsis courses. This was to take me even longer than the transcriptions\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;ve only just finished a bare-bones v1.0 beta, at about 4500 lines of PHP code.\nAnyway, so I was working on that, and then I turned 22 on September 26. This was, maybe ironically (though I can\u0026rsquo;t figure out how it would be ironic), during the last of the 2004 hurricanes. This one may have been called Jeanne. My family had a nice little dinner for me while the storm did its thing outside. The previous year had been probably the best of my life, and I was sorry to see it go, but very excited about the future, given my love of what I was doing for work. My biggest wish (or did I dare make it a prayer?) for the upcoming year was, as it has been since I was 13, that I would fall in love. Yes, it\u0026rsquo;s stupid\u0026ndash;I just read way too much fantasy in my formative adolescent years, and now I\u0026rsquo;m stuck with the sentiment. To my credit, I\u0026rsquo;m pretty realistic about the quality of the sentiment, and am able most of the times to treat it as just that: a sentiment. On the other hand, people occasionally ask me, \u0026ldquo;What if God doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you to fall in love?\u0026rdquo; And I just laugh. Not because I don\u0026rsquo;t believe in God, but because to me the question sounds like, \u0026ldquo;What if God doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean you to be saved?\u0026rdquo; That, of course, is a silly question (unless you believe some wack predestinatorial deal, I guess). It might be helpful (or at least less painful) to be less confident there, but I can\u0026rsquo;t.\nAt this point (in the story), things with the girl at work are fine, as far as I know. I\u0026rsquo;m now just doing my thing, not making a whole lot of (read: any) attempts to hang out with her after being (or imagining being) brushed aside some weeks ago. Moreover, I\u0026rsquo;ve successfully stopped having feelings for her\u0026ndash;which is a good strategy in these situations.\nThen, around the middle of October, she invites me out to this cool little indie bar that we both like to go to, just to hang out and read or something (we\u0026rsquo;re both avid readers. Or, I was until college and am trying to get back into the habit). I figured it was a good idea\u0026ndash;you know, re-open the lines of communication, don\u0026rsquo;t burn bridges, be friends, that sort of thing. So we\u0026rsquo;re reading, and so on, and eventually I get up to leave, when she says, wait, we need to talk.\nWoah. We\u0026rsquo;re actually going to talk about this using words and not innuendos? This is getting interesting. I figured she was going to chew me out for ceasing all kinds of contact after the early September conversation, and was ready to explain about how I liked her, and then felt dismissed, and had needed time to regather my thoughts and feelings, and it\u0026rsquo;s OK, I\u0026rsquo;m not really into you anymore, so don\u0026rsquo;t worry\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s even kinda funny that I liked you to begin with, right? Let\u0026rsquo;s have a good laugh at how silly humans can be and go on with our lives.\nThat would have been fine and great\u0026ndash;you know, clear the air, remove all ambiguity, make a fresh start as friends, etc\u0026hellip; But what she said instead was more like, I knew you liked me all along, and I liked you too. However I didn\u0026rsquo;t think it was wise so I pushed you away. Then, when you were pushed away, I felt very miserable. So maybe that was the wrong decision.\nWell, this was unexpected. But interesting, because rarely is the girl that I\u0026rsquo;m into also into me. So I thought, let\u0026rsquo;s see where this goes! Hours of discussion later, we were \u0026ldquo;officially\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;dating\u0026rdquo;, whatever that means. Hooray! The first \u0026ldquo;official\u0026rdquo; girlfriend in, what, 2 and a half years? You, as the reader, should be asking me, But I thought you said you\u0026rsquo;d stopped having feelings for her? I know, I know\u0026hellip;but it seemed like a golden opportunity so I made the switch back. (Note the stolid independence of the individual here, not willing to be changed by any external circumstances! Hah.)\nAlso during this same weekend, Chris Nyffeler asked his longtime girlfriend Anne to marry him, and she agreed. Stacking up the weddings for the upcoming summer, I see\u0026hellip;but can it match up to 2004? But this was great news\u0026ndash;the second of the Eastwood Posse to get hitched.\nTime then started to pass very quickly, because I was spending it with her. Most of it was spent talking, because we\u0026rsquo;re both very good at talking, and inevitably we dived into the deeper things there are to talk about in relationships. Also there was a good deal of meta-relationship discussion. We talked about it, about how things were going, about how she or I was feeling, about this little problem between our personalities or about this or that big difference between our families, and that sort of thing. And because we have basically the same personality in many ways, we actually got places when we talked. We understood each other and figured stuff out when it needed figuring out. This was a new experience for me.\nAnyhow, this was the way of things for about two weeks\u0026ndash;intense but good conversations where doubts and hopes were freely expressed. I felt very positively about the relationship, and even though I knew there were some things about this girl I would rather be different, I figured that\u0026rsquo;s the way of life and community/relationship of any kind, and was willing to see where it went. Then, one morning when we were about to meet for breakfast, she just sort of inexplicably broke things off. It was more or less without warning, and so it happened and she left without it really registering for me. Then, similarly inexplicably, I felt like shit. I mean, yes, I did just get dumped, and that sucks, but a two-week relationship? I felt vastly more emotionally affected than that length of time seemed to warrant.\nTo this day I\u0026rsquo;m still not exactly sure why that was the moment where I\u0026rsquo;ve, thus far in life, felt the most emotionally hurt. I must have put a lot more of myself and my heart into things than was apparent to me. And if so, it was unwisely, as events proved. But it probably had something to do with everything that had come before\u0026ndash;the year-plus of attraction, the letting go of it, then that fateful conversation which re-ignited it, the fast and unwitting descent into a kind of intimacy\u0026hellip;who knows.\nWhat made the situation worse was a complete lack of community here in Orlando. That is, my family was all either off to school or in San Francisco, and likewise my friends. The only person I\u0026rsquo;d been hanging out with was, of course, this girl. So, I felt very alone. Moreover, I initially had a lot of trouble with the reasons she cited for why things could not progress between us. They did not seem thought-out, and smacked of haste and fear. So our first conversations afterward consisted of me challenging, in a way, her decision and questioning its validity. Eventually, however, I realized that this mission of mine was itself driven pretty much only by emotions, anger included. I saw, though it hurt, the long-term wisdom of the decision, and started to feel OK about it.\nMy emotions needed somewhere to go, however, and so I began to be angry with this girl for the conversation in mid-October, feeling like that was what caused this whole waste of time and energy. And in some respects I still do think she acted unwisely there (as did I). But primarily what I felt was loneliness, and it became oppressive as I looked forward to weeks of working at Excelsis in proximity to this girl, and going home to\u0026hellip;nobody. My usual pursuits of climbing or running or movies or reading or music or computer games or whatever seemed not to be able to cheer me up at all. I did do one productive thing, however, and that was reinstitute the working condition of this weblog! It felt good to lose myself in design for hours.\nI discussed all of these things with my boss at work on Monday (the \u0026ldquo;surprise\u0026rdquo; was on Saturday), who\u0026rsquo;d actually been a confidant over the past months in which this story unfolded. He was able to give me, as a friend of both myself and this now-former girlfriend of mine, a lot of clarity and insight into why things played out the way they did. It served to cool me down and helped establish that peace I described above. He also suggested that I fly to California, to my apartment in SF, so that I could be with my parents and get my mind off of being alone. I\u0026rsquo;d wanted to visit my friends out there anyhow, and this situation was not only a good excuse for that trip, with the blessing of my boss, but I felt that the trip was necessary to my emotional sanity. So I used my vaunted status with American Airlines to get a free next-day mileage ticket out to SF.\nLess than 24 hours later, I was working on the balcony of our apartment, being loved by my parents, and making plans with Stanford friends to go down there and spend a week or so just living and hanging out. Being back in California again felt so much more like home than Orlando, I knew that I had missed it deeply. In addition, getting away had lifted the huge weight that had settled on my soul\u0026ndash;that oppressive feeling of being trapped in Florida with no friends and no (horror of horrors!) romantic prospects. A sense of adventure had returned, and, little did I know, I was about to embark on one.\nGoing down to Stanford again intensified that feeling of being back at home, and I spent hours just wandering around campus and its surroundings, feeling alive in the brisk autumn air (something which doesn\u0026rsquo;t exist in Florida, except for 2 days sometime in December). Being with friends was likewise intoxicating\u0026ndash;each reunion or reconnection seemed to restore a small piece of my heart. I realized then how much I was missing out on in Orlando. I had been so focused on pursuing this one romantic relationship that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t felt the slow decay happening to me as a result of not being part of a broader community. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to church, of course, for a number of reasons, some of which have been discussed on this weblog previously. Most of my friends from high school had drifted away, either still at university or working elsewhere, and in any case my attempts at refocusing those connections were laughable during these months (to my shame). It was pretty much my family and this girl that were my community. So, take away the family due to travel, and take away the girl, and I had nothing to stand on! Virtual relationships, or long-distance friendships were no good to me then, and all of a sudden I sensed this huge need of mine for a strong community of loving friends, which heretofore I\u0026rsquo;d been able to satisfy via little crumbs from the familial and romantic relationships.\nEnter into the context of this realization process Nick Bott, my friend with whom and Jenna I was staying (how do you like that grammar? It\u0026rsquo;s phat). We were driving somewhere and he mentioned the fact that a lot of our friends (most of whom had settled temporarily right around Stanford) were somewhat apprehensive about jumping right into what the world\u0026rsquo;s typical process is after graduating: getting a job, moving away from your friends, living alone, overworking, eventually having a somewhat mediocre marriage and family life, getting that white picket fence and your coveted personal space, spending your retirement on big white yachts, dying\u0026hellip;\nThere was this sense that maybe the most fulfilling life is actually closer to the kind of community we experienced while at school, and not as much the American Dream, or whatever. As you can imagine, this sense resonated very deeply with me, given all that I had been considering. So we started to throw around some ideas and questions to tease out some more specifics from this vague sense. For instance, one of the questions was, what would it look like if, instead of people looking to their jobs to dictate where they lived, they looked to their community of friends instead? That is, what if people considered who they were with as a higher priority than what company they worked for? The most obvious outcome of a life lived this way would be financial sacrifice. But what benefits could there be? Eventually, we began to feel very strongly that there were a great number of benefits, and that they spoke to areas of the human life that were much more central than the financial.\nGradually we brought this discussion to more and more of our friends, and I even set up a weblog where we debated many of the merits and faults of forming various kinds of communities that lived out various counter-intuitive (according to the world) ideas. Because these discussions seemed to me to be very fruitful, I even extended my stay in California so that it totalled almost three weeks. When I left, I felt extremely encouraged, and the pain of the breakup had all but disappeared. It was to settle in again for a time, but I would say that my trip to Stanford did more than anything else to heal me. That, and of course the time spent with family in SF\u0026ndash;Dav and Ellen had even been planning on visiting my folks there before I made my trip, so we were all together (sans Rachel, unfortunately), for one weekend.\nFor the latter part of November I was back in Orlando, continuing to work on the web app, and continuing to think about community ideas and opportunities back in California. I grew more and more excited about it as I combined the ideas that had come up in discussions with friends, and ideas that I\u0026rsquo;d gleaned from the last two summers of TCS, specifically from Graham Tomlin\u0026rsquo;s seminars. The combination effectively produced the idea that I am currently most excited about: a community of people dedicated to each other and to living the fullest human life possible together, which is at the same time no more or less than a church. That is, church would just be this community, and vice versa. No need for buildings or Sunday-morning services or potlucks. Church would just be living life together: eating, playing, wasting time, observing the world around, and yes: worshiping, teaching one another and being taught, reading Scripture, and helping the poor and oppressed. But these things would not be done in separation from the rest\u0026ndash;for not only are worship and teaching valid activities in everyday life, but eating together and wasting time together are valid activities for church.\nAround then, plans were made with a group of friends in California to have a vacation/retreat of sorts up to Tahoe in mid-December for some skiing/snowboarding and hanging out. I decided to go, and also hoped that that time would help me to make the decision which I knew would be required of me sooner or later: whether or not to move back to California. The community ideas we had been considering, while awesome and inspiring and worthy (I think) of putting into practice, come at a fairly high price: they require that one be physically involved. It\u0026rsquo;s not something that I could really be a part of from Florida. Moreover, leaving Florida, I realized, could come with its own set of sacrifices: would I be able to keep my job? How would I deal with the loss of free food/housing (I\u0026rsquo;d been staying at home in Orlando)? Serious questions, and the fact that I was thinking about them proved to me my own seriousness regarding the community. So I was hoping that Tahoe would be a good opportunity to gauge the desired involvement of others, which I could potentially use to then gauge the possibility of success of a home-church/community and thereby the probability of my move. Complicated, I know.\nDecember 6th, when I had planned on flying to California, couldn\u0026rsquo;t come quick enough. I started to once again feel the oppression of being alone in Orlando during that interim time, and this change of optimism regarding life in general also caused there to be doubts about whether my high-flown ideas about community in California might not just be escapism, or foolish dreaming, or a subconscious way to be back where there are single women\u0026hellip; So I had to go through a process of making sure that my motives were not completely overwhelmed by some taint, obvious or unobvious. I think I engaged in that process successfully.\nTahoe was an awesome time. Between snowboarding like a maniac, hanging out with everyone, playing games, watching movies, runs in the cold air, making dinners together, and long serious discussions about life and community, it was about as awesome as a time can be. To my disappointment, however, I didn\u0026rsquo;t happen upon the clarity I was hoping to receive regarding my own potential decision to move to California. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure exacctly why, but I think it became somewhat obvious that my idea of a home-church/community, while immensely attractive to me and a few others, did not catch on as immediately as I\u0026rsquo;d hoped. I think the context in which the idea was shared was somehow forced, for one, and also I\u0026rsquo;ve had the luxury of the past year and a half to come to grips with it and explore a lot of the ins and outs. At any rate, the primary sense I came away with was still encouragement, as there were some people who seemed interested in attempting to put some form of that idea into practice.\nI was back in Orlando for a week before I went to Dallas for Christmas with family there. That week, and indeed the following few weeks, were insane times for my web app coding. I realized suddenly how much I needed to get done by January (a somewhat arbitrary deadline for v1.0 of the app), and worked frantically on it all the way through Christmas Eve. So my time was fairly well taken up with that. I did, as I mentioned, get to Dallas with my family, and we had a wonderful Christmas with my mom\u0026rsquo;s relatives, as well as various family friends like the Morrises (of whom Ellen, Dav\u0026rsquo;s fiancee, is one) and the Petersons. We were even able to go down to Austin and Temple to visit some aunts and uncles.\nWe didn\u0026rsquo;t quite protest the consumerism of Christmas by settling on not buying gifts for each other. Partly it\u0026rsquo;s because that\u0026rsquo;s just a hard thing to do\u0026ndash;being consumeristic is actually fun for brief stints if you have the resources with which to do it. But mostly, we love to give gifts in celebration of Christ\u0026rsquo;s birth (whether or not there is any real spiritual tie to the Nativity), and ones that are useful (as well as thoughtful)! While handmade things tend to be awesome, they also tend to be less useful (though my sister handmade a number of useful gifts this year). So we decided to allow ourselves to buy gifts for one another, but we did away with Christmas lists altogether. That is, no one was allowed to tell anyone else what he or she wanted. We hoped that this would encourage us to focus more on the giving side of things than the receiving. In my mind, it was a great success! I put a lot more thought into the gifts I gave, and was pleasantly surprised (as opposed to barely satiated and relieved) by all the things that my family gave to me.\nWell, I flew back to Orlando on the 28th, and got ready for an awesome week with the Griffin 302 boys (sans Kyle and Dave, who we seem to always be sans, unfortunately). Justin and Jonathan arrived that day from South Carolina, and we made a sweet dinner (plus many, many cocktails) with Tyson at my place. The next day the 4 of us took a little drive to Daytona and played some frisbee golf on the beach, then followed A1A up the coast to St. Augustine, where we wandered around until night time. Then it was back to my place in O-town, where we were greeted not long after arrival by Emilee Shim, who happened to be in Florida and stopped by! We made another excellent dinner, and watched a movie. The next day consisted mostly of sleeping and mini golf; but let\u0026rsquo;s not forget dinner with the Vozzas at some awesome steakhouse on Sand Lake. Dan flew in, finally, on the 31st, and it was off to Cocoa Beach for more disc golf. We got back and made a late dinner of pasta, then had a long and stimulating discussion about how we could/should aid the poor, and what that means. By that time it was nearing the new year, so we got together our poker skills and had a very long poker tournament, which I lost my money in. We were sort of keeping track of the ball on TV, but when 12:00AM came around, I realized I\u0026rsquo;d forgot to ice the champagne. So instead we took shots of vodka from shot glasses made of ice. New year\u0026rsquo;s, Russian-style! But then it was back to poker and white russians (I told you, Russian-style) until we about passed out.\nDefinitely the most chill New Year\u0026rsquo;s party ever\u0026ndash;so much so that 2004 passed and 2005 came with just that one little toast, and none of us seemed to really care. But there we were, and our class year passed. Sort of sad, in a way. But with so much on the horizon for 2005, none of us are looking back.\nEveryone took off the next day, and I unfortunately went to work for 7 days straight, rushing to get my app in working order. And now here we are\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;ve done enough work on the app for now, and am taking a breather, commenting my code (which I didn\u0026rsquo;t do as I coded\u0026ndash;bad habit), fixing little bugs here and there, making a wishlist for version 2, climbing, running, playing World of Warcraft, and preparing for my next trip out to California, which will be on January 18. Hopefully this one will serve to give me any added clarity I need to come to a solid decision on California. As that guy from the Matrix says, \u0026ldquo;Exciting times!\u0026rdquo; Whatever happens from here, I feel like I\u0026rsquo;ve been a part of a little adventure which, at the least, has been helpful in my own personal, spiritual, and emotional formation. Who knows, though\u0026ndash;maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just the start of an adventure much more epic in scope.\nOh yeah, it looks like Erin Spokes and Wes Bolsen might both be visiting me this weekend! Before a few months ago, no one from Stanford had visited me at home in Orlando\u0026ndash;now the total climbs to 7. This pleases me greatly. Hey, if you are still reading, you\u0026rsquo;ve got some stamina. But since no one will read this anyway, I guess it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter what I say. I could say, \u0026ldquo;you don\u0026rsquo;t got no stamina!\u0026rdquo; and it\u0026rsquo;d be all the same. Wot! Well, later. Llama love!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/01/the-rest-of-2004/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e(\u0026hellip;and a tiny bit of 2005)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWARNING: This will be very long. Feel free to read it in chunks, if you wish. Now, you may proceed, with caution.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere were two more hurricanes in 2004, one in early September (in fact this may be the same as the one I described in the last entry; I\u0026rsquo;m getting my dates muddled). But if so I\u0026rsquo;ll talk about a different significance of it. You see, there\u0026rsquo;s something I haven\u0026rsquo;t been mentioning in all these stories: a girl. In fact, a girl who worked at Excelsis, and had done so since the previous summer (of 2003), when I met her. For various reasons which I\u0026rsquo;d find it tedious to go into, I thought she was really cool and was attracted to her. So, when I found out senior year that I would be moving back to Orlando for work, I was excited about the possibility of a relationship with this girl.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Rest of 2004"},{"content":"I returned from TCS in mid-July, fully exhausted from the long days of the seminars. Our team was given a bit of vacation, which I didn\u0026rsquo;t use since I was going to take the following week off in order to unpack my things, perform various moving actions like changing my license plate and so forth, and drive to my old roommate Jonathan Parr\u0026rsquo;s wedding in South Carolina.\nSo, I spent a few days getting acquainted with my new office at Excelsis in downtown Orlando, and with my first assignment, which was to transcribe one of the seminars from LA. The process of transcribing is rather slow and tedious, but it was to be my life for over a month. For all the tedium, however, I was glad to be going over Graham\u0026rsquo;s material again, and at a very slow speed. Graham Tomlin spoke, you see, at between 160 and 180 words per minute, whereas my top sustained typing speed is much closer to 75 words per minute. The solution was to slow down the audio recording, while retaining pitch, so that it sounded roughly like Graham was extremely drunk (and wise), and so that I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to stop and rewind the recording all the time.\nThe slow-downing (as we technically named the process), while making the overall transcription more efficient, did mean that I transcribed audio at something like 1/3 the rate of the actual recording. In other words, it was going to take a long time.\nThankfully, I had a break on the near horizon, and so on July 23, I think it was, I drove up to Newberry, South Carolina. I met Jon that evening, and he took me fishing in a little boat on his family\u0026rsquo;s pond, to which we got via a dusty farm road in his grandfather\u0026rsquo;s old pickup truck, past some people rounding up horses. The south, indeed.\nNo fish were caught that night, but the next day was a little more fruitful. That is, we shot guns. Shotguns, in fact, of various sizes and recoils. His uncle had a clay pigeon thrower, so Parr and Tyson Vozza (who\u0026rsquo;d come the night before) took rounds shooting. It was great fun, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t do bad at all, shooting about 85%, even though I\u0026rsquo;d never fired a gun before. My performance would improve the next day, when I shot 100% of the targets!\nMany more friends trickled in during that time, and we attended all sorts of wedding-ish parties and what have you, until the actual wedding on Saturday, for which all of us Stanford folk were late. Who knew the minister would start exactly on time? The reception was outdoors nearby and full of great food and dancing, followed by a late night out at a lake where we\u0026rsquo;d had the bachelor party not 24 hours earlier. It was a wonderful way to celebrate Jon and LeAnne.\nI left the next day after sleeping enough to ensure that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t fall asleep at the wheel, and got home just under 7 hours later.\nThe next weekend I got word from my brother that he had indeed asked his girlfriend Ellen to marry him! So the first of my siblings to get engaged. It was a pretty weird (but awesome) experience, and I was glad to start with the preliminaries of welcoming someone new into the family.\nThe rest of that month wasn\u0026rsquo;t so exciting, unfortunately, filled as it was with transcription and, surprise, a couple hurricanes! Charley and Frances, to be exact. For Charley, it was just my sister and I at home (our folks were in England celebrating their 25th anniversary!) as the relatively small, but ferocious, hurricane passed directly over Orlando. While many properties were damaged, ours suffered no real harm, despite the winds and the things flying around outside. Frances was much more chill (or maybe it was Jeanne? Let\u0026rsquo;s call it Frances). Ellen\u0026rsquo;s family had come to stay with ours for that weekend, and so the 7 or 8 of us were essentially locked in the house for a few days, eating, sleeping, and partying (no seriously, partying). Again, while Frances proved to be a very serious storm, the brunt of it passed by us and in retrospect we probably didn\u0026rsquo;t even need to board up our windows.\nAs we neared September, I had the honor of flying out to Stanford to be in Nick Bott\u0026rsquo;s (and Jenna formerly-Shuer\u0026rsquo;s) wedding as a groomsman. So for a few days before the wedding, Nick and all his entourage, from both Stanford and St. Louis, hung out and did all sorts of fun bachelor-type activities. We were even given the gift of a sailboat ride around the SF bay, which was all the more cooler when my dad was able to get out the telescope from our SF apartment and tell me how many fingers I was holding up on the boat out in the bay! We also spent time with Nick and Jenna\u0026rsquo;s families, and Jenna\u0026rsquo;s bridesmaids. The wedding itself was on Sunday, in a beautiful redwood grove by a secret little lake up in the Santa Cruz mountains. The ceremony was beautiful, the string quartet was beautiful, and dare I say it, even the \u0026ldquo;special music\u0026rdquo; was beautiful (Nick asked Alex Polk and I to play Come Thou Fount). The reception was even more beautiful, if that is possible, followed by a night of dancing and being emotional about friends getting married and so on.\nBut that is where the story must stop temporarily. This whole \u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s Happened Since Graduation\u0026rdquo; series has taken much longer to write than I had planned, so I am going to have to move more quickly from here on out. In fact, I think what I\u0026rsquo;ll do next is simply do a basic recap of the last part of 2004, which does deserve a recap due to the important things which have happened in it. But I can\u0026rsquo;t spend all my time catching up, because then I\u0026rsquo;ll never write about anything besides events, and we all know that sucks. So bear with me, and we\u0026rsquo;ll pull through it soon!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2005/01/what-happened-since-graduation-pt-iv-two-weddings-and-some-hurricanes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI returned from TCS in mid-July, fully exhausted from the long days of the seminars. Our team was given a bit of vacation, which I didn\u0026rsquo;t use since I was going to take the following week off in order to unpack my things, perform various moving actions like changing my license plate and so forth, and drive to my old roommate Jonathan Parr\u0026rsquo;s wedding in South Carolina.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, I spent a few days getting acquainted with my new office at Excelsis in downtown Orlando, and with my first assignment, which was to transcribe one of the seminars from LA. The process of transcribing is rather slow and tedious, but it was to be my life for over a month. For all the tedium, however, I was glad to be going over Graham\u0026rsquo;s material again, and at a very slow speed. Graham Tomlin spoke, you see, at between 160 and 180 words per minute, whereas my top sustained typing speed is much closer to 75 words per minute. The solution was to slow down the audio recording, while retaining pitch, so that it sounded roughly like Graham was extremely drunk (and wise), and so that I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to stop and rewind the recording all the time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What Happened Since Graduation, pt IV: Two Weddings and Some Hurricanes"},{"content":"You will remember from the last entry that I drove into Orlando early on June 25th. Then I had one day to sort things out in my room before work started. On Sunday the 26th, I drove over to the Plaza Theatre, just a few miles from my house, to help set up for the first week of TCS.\nTCS stands for “Text. Context. Soul.” Or, “Text, Context, Soul,” if you prefer less trendy punctuation. It’s essentially a learning/teaching/training/equipping seminar series that Excelsis (the company I work for), in partnership with GCM (some vaguely-defined missions-and/or-church-planting organization), puts on. This summer marked the second annual TCS (I talked about last year’s earlier—it was a good bit of the reason I decided to work for Excelsis).\nAnyway, The trade between Excelsis and GCM seems to be (and I’m not a part of any of this so it’s just my guess) that in return for some financial (and other) backing, Excelsis gives a sort of priority admittance to the seminars to GCM staff (who together comprise probably around or over 95% of those who do attend).\nThe basic idea behind TCS is, as I mentioned, equipping (which is another trendy word in my circles that just means teaching/preparation/training/etc). Who are we trying to equip? Essentially, Christians. With what are we trying to equip them? Essentially, better (sometimes newer, sometimes not) ideas about a variety of issues pertaining to Christian life, spirituality, and philosophy. Or at least, better than the ones they now have. Ideas armed with which they will be more prepared to live successfully in, and have more fruitful interaction with, the world. How are we trying to do this? Well, we take a bunch of possibly full-time Christian service-people, i.e., missionaries or college ministers or church planters or pastors or seminary students, which role has thus far been filled by the GCM staff who have attended. Then we take a highly-trained academic, say a theologian from Oxford or a philosopher from USC, who supposedly has some of these good ideas or research. Then we say, have at it! Teach, learn, share, interact, discuss, and hopefully create a unique environment where true learning (this equipping we want) happens.\nMeanwhile, us Excelsis folks worry about providing the venue for these seminar events, making it look pretty, and ultimately filming it with enough equipment to make a feature film. The idea is that we can then use this footage, together with the interactive transcript of the seminar plus a huge research library we are building, to create a new breed of e-learning products.\nAnd that’s more or less exactly what happened for 3 weeks. The first week-long seminar was, as I said, in Orlando. We took over a large theater and installed tons of lights, various pieces of artwork, tables, chairs, candles, and whatever trendy little things were around. Then we (well not me personally, of course, but…) set up 3 or 4 full camera rigs, including one huge boom camera operated by a burly guy with a mullet.\nOur speaker for most of that week was Bill Edgar, an apologist from a seminary which I’ve forgotten. Maybe Westminster or something? He talked about the art of Christian persuasion, in the style of Francis Schaeffer (he was a student of Schaeffer’s). On the whole his presentation was well-done, and helpful I think to many there, but I found that it didn’t really connect to my experience in a meaningful way.\nOn the other hand, his use of film, art, and music to point out the progression of society since however long ago was quite intriguing. I’ve always loved art and art history for that reason (not that I know anything about it).\nDuring these days, my job was to run media such as powerpoint, music, and video. So I sat in a little booth back with the live-edit video crew, fiddling with the new Powerbook G4 I’d got. Lunch was catered for the crew and myself, so while everyone else went out, we ate Quizno’s and threw DVDs on the big projection screen we’d set up. I finally saw Spirited Away which was excellent.\nBill Edgar concluded on Thursday with a jazz piano recital which was frankly amazing; I wish I had anything like that kind of technical skill with a musical instrument. Friday, the first week of TCS concluded with a mini-seminar by Gordon Pennington, former marketing director for Tommy Hilfiger and other New York-type companies, on culture. So there was a lot of stuff about media and TV and mind control and so forth; generally good, though his style was fairly abrasive to me. But don’t listen to me; obviously I’m just a critic.\nOne of the downsides to the week was that the workday went from 8am to 9pm, affording me no time to unpack in the evenings. And on Saturday, I flew along with some other Excelsis folk to LA for 2 more weeks of TCS—so my stuff continued to reside in various boxes.\nThe flight to LA was unremarkable, and when we got there we were chauffeured minivan-style to Kairos, a church near the Hollywood, Sunset blvd area, where we accompanied a rather large crew in getting the place ready for filming. We effected a pretty total transformation, drawing on the skills of various interior-decorator-inclined folk, and by the end of Saturday things looked pretty good.\nThat Sunday we did a sort of test drive of the cameras, lights, and all the rest, by filming the Kairos church service. I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Chad, the film/media guy for Excelsis and the director for the seminars. We were to be roommates for those two weeks in the illustrious Ramada Hollywood, just a few blocks from where we were filming, and conveniently located by the headquarters of the Church of Scientology, where we saw no end of interesting goings-on whenever passers-by we became (of it). So anyway, Chad and I walked around Sunset Blvd and had a few beers at one of those touristy, overpriced LA bars.\nThen, I had the good fortune to run into my friend from school Chris Haughey, who I’d known was in LA and wanted to connect with. It happened, also quite opportunely, to be the 4th of July, so I went along with Chris to a party he knew about over in Santa Monica (I think it was). It was good to catch up with him and jointly ignore the rest of the people at this party (and drink all his donated rum, which no one else seemed to want).\nThen the weeks began in earnest, with Graham Tomlin kicking off TCS week 2. My official job was no longer media guy, since the church had employed some volunteers for that purpose. Instead, I ran the dolly cam. That is, I pushed an expensive camera and camera operator on a little trolley up and down a 12-foot track. And I did it hundreds and thousands of times a day, whenever I got the word from Chad over the ClearCom headsets the whole crew was wearing.\nAt first it was fun, and since the quality of the picture depended on how smooth the dolly op could control the vehicle, I felt kind of important. Moreover, there was definitely a “trick” or two to getting it to run smoothly, so I felt like I was learning a somewhat valuable skill. For a while. Then, after about 5 minutes, it got incredibly monotonous. “Go to 1, Go to 2, Go to 1, Go to 2”—this is what I heard for 2 weeks. So, to break some of that monotony, I and the camera ops availed ourselves of every opportunity to crack a joke or say something funny in the headsets. Because of that things were actually bearable.\nWell, that and the fact that I was getting to hear Graham teach, which is something I deeply enjoy. Again, Graham was just right on and I wanted to write down everything he said and digest it more slowly. Well, I got what I wanted later on when I did end up transcribing every single word of that week’s seminar. I’m still digesting much of it, and reaping many benefits of that reflection.\nGraham Tomlin teaching in LA\nThe nights were mostly spent hanging out in the hotel and reading, or hanging out with the camera crew, who I grew to be pretty good short-while friends with (most were from LA, but one had come from Orlando, and we’d hung out the previous week). On Thursday, it was a short seminar day, so a bunch of us went over to the Getty art museum—it’s rockin.\nFriday was a bit crazy. At around 9pm I had someone take me to the airport where I boarded a plane for Indianapolis for my good friend (and Eastwood Posse dude) Andy Wolfe’s wedding. I got in around midday on Saturday after some flight shenanigans in Chicago O’Hare (an airport no one should choose to fly through, ever), then Mark and Christian drove me to Bloomington for the wedding. It was pretty short and sweet, and I was an usher. Ushering is awesome. Plus it was really weird to see Andy get married—a feeling I’d experience twice more in a month and a half. But that’s later.\nThe highlight of the trip was definitely the reception and after-party thing. Free beer and wine, good food, crazy fun people that I knew and crazy fun people that I’d just met, dancing, much defacing of the newlyweds’ vehicle, inappropriate comments in shoe-polish on the window, and so forth. All the Posse was there except Josh, so we counted it as Altimar V.\nBut the trip was short—at 4am I was driven back to Indianapolis after not having slept due to partying, and then I was flying back to LA, where I was met by some film crew guys, who took me out to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles for breakfast. An excellent Hollywood restaurant if you ever get the chance. From there we went to the LA Dodgeball League, which was co-founded by Rob, who was co-directing the TCS event with Chad. Apparently a lot of people from that dodgeball league were in the dodgeball movie, including Rob. So I played a bunch of rounds, doing alright for myself. It was fun, and brought back great memories of childhood, except for the fact that large men can throw considerably harder than young children.\nThat night a bunch of us went to the LA House of Blues, where Mark Pontius, the camera op who I pushed back and forth all day, was playing with his band Malbec. I’d had a chance to listen to their demo CD, and it was really good, as was their live show. The beer was very expensive, however—something I was growing to dislike LA greatly for.\nThe next week’s seminar was lead by Dallas Willard, a philosophy prof from USC. He talked about Spiritual Formation, which is basically the issue of what it means to, how one can, and what processes allow one to grow in order to, most completely live (as a Christian).\nFor me, it was once again edifying to hear what I recognized as desirable wisdom during the course of that week. Or at least, what I could catch while pushing the camera around and making jokes.\nAnd that’s really all there is to say about it. Of course, I did more things in LA—I went to Amoeba, shopped at various bookstores, patronized various Thai eating establishments, and sat in deadlocked traffic jams on various highways. But Saturday, July 17 came soon enough, and then I was on a plane home. The airline lost my bag for a few days upon return, which was inconvenient, but it all got worked out like it usually does, and so I set myself to the task of moving in.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/12/what-happened-since-graduation-pt-iii-tcs-2004/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eYou will remember from the last entry that I drove into Orlando early on June 25th. Then I had one day to sort things out in my room before work started. On Sunday the 26th, I drove over to the Plaza Theatre, just a few miles from my house, to help set up for the first week of TCS.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTCS stands for “Text. Context. Soul.” Or, “Text, Context, Soul,” if you prefer less trendy punctuation. It’s essentially a learning/teaching/training/equipping seminar series that Excelsis (the company I work for), in partnership with GCM (some vaguely-defined missions-and/or-church-planting organization), puts on. This summer marked the second annual TCS (I \u003ca href=\"/2004/04/excelsis/\"\u003etalked about\u003c/a\u003e last year’s earlier—it was a good bit of the reason I decided to work for Excelsis).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What Happened Since Graduation, pt. III: TCS 2004"},{"content":"Road Trip V2 is what my brother David (hereafter Dav, pronounced \u0026ldquo;Dave\u0026rdquo;) and I decided to call our cross-country road trip. On the morning we left San Francisco for Orlando, we printed out two TripTiks to guide us home, but by different routes. We ultimately chose the second one, hence \u0026ldquo;V2\u0026rdquo;. But V2 is also a climbers\u0026rsquo; rating of bouldering difficulty\u0026ndash;the rating that happened to be right at the top of Dav\u0026rsquo;s and my skill levels\u0026ndash;and since we planned on the road trip being a climbing road trip, it was fitting in that sense as well. So here is the chronicle of that 2-week adventure, replete with the most pictures of any entry in this series (I think).\nMonday, June 14, 2004 Dav and I woke up early that morning in our family\u0026rsquo;s San Francisco apartment, and packed up our things. We also hadn\u0026rsquo;t planned a specific route home yet\u0026ndash;we just had some vague notions we wanted to visit a few key places. So we got online and printed out a few route options, figuring nothing was set in stone. Our only hard-and-fast deadline was that we needed to be in Orlando by the 25th, since I started work on Sunday, the 27th. With the help of our family, we got my bike and snowboard back on top of the car, loaded the trunk with as many boxes of my stuff as possible, filled the backseat with our climbing and hiking gear, and were off around 9am.\nOur first stop was Castle Rock State Park, my \u0026ldquo;home\u0026rdquo; climbing area, being the closest to Stanford at about a 45-minute drive. There we met my college roommate and climbing partner Dan Urban for a morning of lead climbing and bouldering. We wanted to make sure to do some lead climbing under Dan\u0026rsquo;s more professional eye, to make sure that, if Dav and I wanted, we could set up our own lead climbs during the course of the road trip. So, we spent a few hours training and having fun, and then it was time to set off on the first major leg of our adventure: Yosemite.\nWe said our goodbyes to Dan and then made a brief stop at the Saratoga REI, where we loaded up on camp food and miscellaneous gear. Then it was off to the Valley\u0026ndash;about a 4-hour drive away. It was an uneventful drive, except for a little apprehension on my part as it was the first time my bike and snowboard were subjected to sustained high speeds. But Yakima be praised\u0026ndash;everything (including my self-guided installation of the rack) seemed solid.\nWe rolled into Yosemite about mid-evening and spent a little bit driving around, showing Dav some of the cooler formations like the Cathedral and El Capitan. When it got dark, we made our way to Camp 4, my resting place of the previous weekend. Being the summer, there were no campsites available, so Dav and I threw our sleeping bags on the ground somewhere on the outskirts of the camp and settled in for the evening. I didn\u0026rsquo;t sleep very well, since a lot of weird feelings were rolling around inside me regarding graduating, leaving my home, starting a road trip that wasn\u0026rsquo;t planned very well, being \u0026ldquo;in charge\u0026rdquo; and responsible for myself and for my brother\u0026rsquo;s safety.\nTuesday, June 15, 2004 But the early morning came soon enough anyway, and so Dav and I packed up our things and drove to Happy Isles, where we picked up the trail to hike up Half-Dome\u0026ndash;a trail which by now was looking very familiar, given the 4 times I\u0026rsquo;d traversed it just 10 days prior. I was feeling really good, and Dav was keeping up, so we blasted through the first section of the trail and kept a pretty intense pace up past both waterfalls on the stairstep sections. We\u0026rsquo;d started relatively late (6am or so), so we passed up a number of groups on the way up.\nDav and I practically raced the rest of the way, slowing down only near the final set of stairsteps before the cables, when Dav began to feel ill. As it would later become evident, he had contracted altitude sickness (undoubtedly due to our fast ascent). I didn\u0026rsquo;t think that was the case at the time, though, given Dav\u0026rsquo;s high level of fitness and the relatively low altitude we were at (say 7500 ft). So I unwisely pushed him to continue at a pretty decent clip. As we neared the cables, though, it soon became apparent that something was fairly seriously wrong, and Dav was having to take frequent breaks and fighting off intense nausea. We were close then, so he didn\u0026rsquo;t want to turn back; he manfully kept on, following me up the last, most difficult segment: the cables. And then we were up! I looked at my watch then to see how long it had taken us, and I was surprised: only 3 and a half hours! A whole hour and a half faster than the last time I\u0026rsquo;d done the hike, and that even with the relatively slow finish.\nWe thought having a good long rest would settle Dav\u0026rsquo;s problems, so we munched on energy bars and tried to take a little nap on the warm and sunny summit (such a different experience than the frigid night of the previous week), enjoying the view.\nDav and I on Half-Dome\nInstead of improving, Dav\u0026rsquo;s condition worsened, and he eventually started vomiting up his food and water. At that point I began to get very worried, because if something was so wrong that he could not keep water down, it would be a pretty dangerous 8-mile trek back to the car. And then what? I didn\u0026rsquo;t know how to get any medical attention, even if we could make it back! I kept these thoughts to myself, and focused on getting us down. So we started down the cables, down the long stairs, and back to the \u0026ldquo;treeline\u0026rdquo;, where, wonderfully, Dav pronounced himself all better. It finally occurred to me that he had indeed been experiencing altitude sickness, and most of my fears went away. He was fine the rest of the way down, and we took it pretty easy.\nCool rainbow at the bottom of one of the falls\nMe in the mist!\nAfter we made it back, we enjoyed some burgers and beer at Curry Village, and even ran into some family friends from LA. Well, the first stop on Road Trip V2 had been a success, and so it was time to move on. We got the car ready, and navigated the confusing Yosmite road system, trying to find the eastern exit to the park.\nOn the way, we were treated to some of the most amazing scenery I have ever looked on, from majestic forests to granite cliffs and mountains, to bright green glacial meadows, to nearby peaks with snow in mid-summer. This was the area called Tuolumne, and I will definitely be visiting it again in future adventures. Here are a few pictures:\nA random beautiful lake\nAn alpine meadow\nOn this route east through Yosemite, we went through Tioga pass, which marked the highest elevation my car had ever been: 9,945 ft. As proof:\nTioga pass gate\nFrom there it was downhill into the elevated desert of eastern California. The plan was to hit Bishop, CA that night, camp, and boulder in Bishop the next day. We knew nothing about Bishop except that it was reputed to have some of the best bouldering anywhere. And we knew its location, thanks to our TripTik.\nAll told, it was probably about a 6-7 hour trip to Bishop. We didn\u0026rsquo;t see any boulders or campgrounds in the small town itself, though, so we decided we needed to ask around. Luckily, there was an awesome outdoors store that we stumbled upon, and its staff was more than helpful. We got info about campsites and bouldering areas, and purchased more camp food (dried spaghetti and meatballs), a guide to the bouldering in the area, and a road atlas of the US, Canada, and Mexico (something we\u0026rsquo;d left home without, and something which came in very handy).\nBlurry picture of the sunset on our way out of Bishop\nWe left the store at dark and made our way to a self-pay campsite which we\u0026rsquo;d unknowingly passed on the way in, about 10 miles outside of town. It was supposedly close to the Happy Boulders, which was the bouldering area Dav and I had decided to check out in Bishop (there are several, as well as some good top-roping in a nearby gorge). Unfortunately, after we paid, we discovered that the campsite was hell. It was right by a small stream, which we thought would be excellent in the arid climate, but which turned out to mean billions of mosquitoes and other bugs. It got so bad that, even though the temperature had to be well into the 80s (even after dark), Dav and I put on pants, gloves and jackets, and fashioned turbans out of shirts. We then proceeded to protect our faces by smoking our pipes as furiously as possible while getting the dried spaghetti and meatballs wet and hot enough to eat over my camp stove.\nAfter we executed the tactical move called \u0026ldquo;get your ass into the tent and don\u0026rsquo;t let any of those little shits in with you\u0026rdquo;, the night got considerably better, and we slept pretty well through the hot, moonless night.\nWednesday, June 16, 2004 The sun rose early, and so did we. We packed our gear up amidst the bugs that were still faintly buzzing around, and drove to a nearby well where we pumped water into our nalgenes just like you\u0026rsquo;ve seen them do it on Little House on the Prairie, or whatever that show is that I didn\u0026rsquo;t see where people live in the country. From there, we took my little Civic on the most torturous dirt roads she\u0026rsquo;d ever seen. We cruised at a sweet 5mph over giant ripples in the dirt for about 2 miles to where we decided the trail to the Happy Boulders started.\nThen it was up a steep trail for about a half a mile until we came to the south end of the Happies, and had a half-day of some excellent bouldering. We saw a few other boulderers (with whom we had friendly, climber-like conversations) but for the most part the region was ours, save for the vultures floating ominously overhead in the dry air.\nWe tried a number of bouldering routes that were outlined on the map we had bought, but most proved to be beyond our ability. To give you a sense of perspective, some of the routes in the area were rated V10 or V12, whereas the hardest route I was able to complete was rated V1 (I don\u0026rsquo;t think I pulled off a V2, which would have been fitting for the trip). That route was called Beer Tumor, and it was possibly the funnest outdoor bouldering problem I\u0026rsquo;ve done. It started at a pretty burly sit-start in a cave, then out through a roof up onto some really sharp crimpy stuff for an athletic mantle finish. (Of course, being a V1, words like \u0026ldquo;burly\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;athletic\u0026rdquo; should be taken relatively). Here\u0026rsquo;s a picture of me making my way out of the roof:\nMe on Beer Tumor\nAs 11am rolled around, Dav and I started to wear down, and the sharp volcanic rock of the Happies started to rend our hands useless for further climbing. The temperature\u0026rsquo;s own climb into the high 90s also influenced our decision to call it quits for the successful day.\nDav and I posing with the car after bouldering\nSo we got into that car and headed south from Bishop, down the eastern edge of the Sierras. The terrain in this part of California was very interesting, as to our right we had the Sierras with their snow, and to our left the deathly dry and hot salt flats, or dried-out lake beds, or whatever it was. Once we almost ran out of gas going up a very long incline, and stopped to refuel in Johannesburg, CA. As the following picture proves, it is a very small town.\nPost Office, grocery store, and gas station, all in the same building\nWell, eventually we\u0026rsquo;d got far enough south, and decided to head southwest, towards LA. The idea was to hit the 10, which we would then take east to the 62 (or whatever road it is), north to Joshua Tree national park. We found the 10, and immediately wished we hadn\u0026rsquo;t (as does anybody who\u0026rsquo;s driven on the 10, probably). But after the sucky traffic in the middle of nowhere that didn\u0026rsquo;t make any sense, we got out into the real nowhere and headed north to Joshua Tree. We drove in around 6 hours after we\u0026rsquo;d left, scored one of the many campsites (Joshua Tree is very hot and empty in the summers), and went back outside the park to the actual town of Joshua Tree for some dinner (at the same Sam\u0026rsquo;s Pizza and Indian Food restaurant as this last time I went to Joshua Tree, when I almost died). We got this amazing picture on the way:\nSunset leaving Joshua Tree\nAfter dinner, we headed straight back to the tent and tried to get some sleep in preparation for the next day of bouldering we had planned. Since it was such a warm night, and since I felt very comfortable in Joshua Tree after the last time I\u0026rsquo;d been there, I decided to sleep outside under the stars, on the rock. It was beautiful.\nThursday, June 17, 2004 We woke up with the sun again, in order to conserve as much coolness as possible, and drove over to the Wonderland of Rocks to mess around on some boulders. We worked on a few problems, and then stayed at Gunsmoke, a real, live V2, for a while. Gunsmoke is a really fun, very long traverse which works various cracks along two sides of a corner wall.\nDav on Gunsmoke\nMe at the same place on Gunsmoke\nNeither of us did the whole problem from start to finish, but we did enough for me to proclaim it the trip V2, if only so that we have something to justify the name!\nFrom there we moved to another area of J-Tree, and did some more problems, but it was starting to get insanely hot, and our energy was sapped more and more by the minute. So again we called it quits around midday, and packed up our campsite to head out.\nOur next destination: Phoenix. We didn\u0026rsquo;t know exactly what we would do there, but we used to live there (I was born there, in fact), and have a good number of friends there, so we figured we could stay for a day or two and hang out, or recover from the intense, showerless few days that had passed.\nAnother 6 hours on I-10, and we had made it, through some of the craziest desert headwinds I\u0026rsquo;ve ever been in (I\u0026rsquo;m sure the bike-shaped sail on top of my little 4-cylinder car didn\u0026rsquo;t help). On the way we had made plans to stay with the Carusos, family friends from when we were little kids. We pulled into their place in south Phoenix (or it may have been Tempe) just before dinner, and frightened them with our grizzled appearances.\nAfter showers, they recognized us, and we had a wonderful dinner with Jim, Marla, Amy, and Kaitlyn (Amy and Kaitlyn are Dav\u0026rsquo;s and my age), catching up on life since the last time we\u0026rsquo;d seen them (which was probably closer to 10 than 5 years ago).\nFriday, June 18, 2004 The following day, Dav and I woke up late, and took a drive around Phoenix, seeing some of the places we used to visit whenever we\u0026rsquo;d come to Phoenix in the summers as kids. We drove around ASU, where my parents met and got married, and went to lunch at In \u0026lsquo;N Out (just because I\u0026rsquo;d forgot to take Dav to one in California). We tried to get in touch with some other people we knew, but on such short notice it didn\u0026rsquo;t work out.\nThat night we went along with the Carusos to their weekly family dinner, with relatives who lived nearby. It was a fun group, and cool to see so much family that had stayed in one place and made it a point to get together frequently. In fact, they\u0026rsquo;d all purchased some land and were planning on building houses together.\nTo close off the evening Dav and I went over to Amy and Kaitlyn\u0026rsquo;s apartment and watched Legally Blonde, and did some more catching up and talking about life with them. It\u0026rsquo;s awesome to have friends who, no matter how often or when you met them on the path of life, there still seems to be something of a common bond and a shared experience within which you can talk about just about anything.\nSaturday, June 19, 2004 On Saturday, Dav and I drove up to Rimrock, AZ, where my aunt Cindy and uncle Jeff live. Jeff is a volunteer firefighter, among other things, and Cindy works at a nearby hotel. It was good to spend the day with them, since of all my close relatives we probably see them the least!\nWe imposed on the Carusos for one more night, and went with them to see a local league indoor soccer game, where guys from their church played some other team. It made me remember how much I missed playing soccer. And that\u0026rsquo;s really all there is to say about that day.\nSunday, June 20, 2004 Dav and I slept in on Sunday while the Carusos went to church. We woke up and did some laundry, then packed for the remainder of the trip. Incidentally, this is when I used their computer to check e-mail and weblogs, and noticed that this weblog (along with the rest of what was on my two web servers) had been deleted. Threatening letters were sent to my hosting service, but to no avail. Also, when I was working on the computer, it died, and the contents of its hard drives were erased by a virus (which had been downloaded before I used it). All in all, not a good day for information technology as far as it related to me.\nAt 2pm, we thanked the Carusos for their hospitality, and started the drive to Texas. We planned on driving from Phoenix to Austin, straight through the night, and it was supposed to take 18-20 hours, depending on any number of variables. So we were off!\nThe drive through the Arizona and New Mexico desert was without incident and quite beautiful\u0026ndash;the stretch of I-10 from a few hours east of LA into El Paso is one of my favorite pieces of highway in the country. When the evening hit, we stopped at a Love\u0026rsquo;s truckstop in New Mexico, where we got dinner and I lost one of my nalgene bottles. Then, David got behind the wheel for the first time of the trip. I had a fair bit of anxiety as Dav had never really driven stick before except once or twice, and I was giving him all sorts of verbal instruction pulling out of the truckstop. Thankfully, it was an easy, non-hilly move onto the highway, and we were again on our way.\nWe hit Texas around 9pm, and drove through El Paso, with the big, white, American Interstate lights above us and the softer, yellow-gold, haphazardly-placed lights of the Mexican city Juarez to our right, just across a border which was invisible in the night.\nA few hours east of El Paso, we ran into an inspection station, where Dav experienced his first stop and go traffic with a standard vehicle. The only problem was, the car wasn\u0026rsquo;t going\u0026ndash;he kept stalling it! So a huge space was opening up in front of us, and I was worried that the officials would notice something odd going on, get suspicious about our vehicle, and want to search it. We had so many boxes in the car, I didn\u0026rsquo;t want that kind of wasted time on our hands. So I gave Dav 3 tries and then told him to switch seats, even though I could tell he really wanted to do it on his own. Thankfully, nothing strange happened with the inspectors\u0026ndash;they asked me if the car belonged to me, and that was it. Not a fruit inspection as usual, so I wonder what they were looking for.\nSo I was driving again after a few hours\u0026rsquo; rest, through the dark of west Texas. There was a large storm up ahead which took up the whole eastern sky, and would periodically expose the stubby trees in a ghostly blur with beautiful lightning as the car sped past them. I\u0026rsquo;m somewhat paranoid when it comes to Texas storms, though, especially in the summer, since I\u0026rsquo;d experienced a fair number of tornadic or near-tornadic events; this meant the storm, beautiful though it was, made me unsettled. What\u0026rsquo;s worse, it seemed as though we were getting closer only slowly, which meant that it was probably moving in the same direction, which in turn meant that getting through the storm would take that much longer.\nMonday, June 21, 2004 Luckily, I-10 took a more due-easterly turn, and so we seemed to be on a course which would circumvent the bulk of the storm. Still, for hours upon end, it stayed on the horizon, menacing and wild.\nEventually I began to get sleepy and the car needed gas, so we pulled off somewhere after Sonora, TX, where we refueled and I gave Dav another chance to drive. He did fine without the pressure of the inspection station, and I was soon fast asleep as he drove, listening to David Gray.\nI woke up again before dawn, only a few hours outside of Austin. When we needed gas again, and when we left I-10 in favor of a more direct country road, I took charge of the car and took it all the way to our destination: my uncle David and aunt Sarah\u0026rsquo;s house in west Austin. I don\u0026rsquo;t remember exactly when we arrived; it was probably 7:30 or 8:00 am. Our aunt was ready for us, though, and had made up some beds so we went right to sleep.\nDav and I woke up a little after 12, and spent the afternoon hanging out with our little cousin Ryan, who is like 5. He likes video games, so Dav and I had no problem entertaining him and ourselves with whatever console my aunt and uncle had.\nFor dinner that night, the 5 of us went out to a supposedly classic restaurant near UT which I\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten the name of, but was known for its \u0026ldquo;down-home cookin\u0026rdquo;. There we met my other aunt Sarah, who lives a ways north of Austin. She gave us a surprise during conversation; she had just found out she was pregnant! So I have another cousin on the way. If all goes well, that will bring the total cousin count to 2.\nTuesday, June 22, 2004 Dav and I said our goodbyes to family on Tuesday morning, and started the 3-hour drive north to the Dallas area, where we were to stay for a few days. We used to live in Cedar Hill, TX, which is a suburb of Dallas. Cedar Hill is full of interesting landmarks like this one:\nThe water tower\nWe got in about midday to the Morrises\u0026rsquo; house. The Morrises are family friends like the Carusos, and were some of our best friends in Texas. As it happened, David had been dating Ellen Morris since the previous October, due to a number of circumstances which there isn\u0026rsquo;t time to relate. But anyway, they had become serious in their relationship and Ellen was moving to Gainesville so she and David could relate to one another in a short-distance sort of way. We spent the next few days helping her pack and get ready, as she and David were going to drive her car to Orlando while I drove mine. Caravans!\nI hung out with Nathan Pettijohn, my best friend growing up, that night. While I was waiting for him at Barnes and Nobles, I randomly ran into a few other friends from high school, which is odd, because I\u0026rsquo;ve never ran into anyone from high school in Cedar Hill since I moved. So Nathan, Claire, her friend, and I hung out, listened to music, and had beer at Bennigan\u0026rsquo;s until late in the evening.\nWednesday, June 23, 2004 The next day, I indulged myself and allowed myself to visit CD Warehouse, which, in the Cedar Hill / Duncanville area, tends to have some of the best and newest indie-type music around. I picked up some cool stuff by Muse, Elliott Smith, the Doves, and Aimee Mann.\nImportantly, David took Ellen\u0026rsquo;s parents out to dinner that night, and asked for her hand in marriage, while I stayed behind with Ellen and her cousin and her aunt and talked about what David was doing (for some reason there wasn\u0026rsquo;t much of a secret). Well, there it was: just a matter of time until my brother was (probably) engaged. Crazy.\nThat night I took a drive up Central Expwy to Cafe Brazil to meet a friend from Stanford, Joe-Joe Chen, who was living in Plano at the time. It was pretty crazy to see a Stanford friend in that environment, since Stanford and Texas have never mixed for me, since I\u0026rsquo;ve been living in Orlando as long as Stanford was a potential or actual part of my life. In fact, only Tyson Vozza, of all my Stanford friends, has ever visited me in Orlando. (That will change in a month, however).\nAnyway, I got back late, which was very bad, because we were planning on leaving at 6am for the long, straight shot to Orlando, which was supposed to be around a 21-hour drive.\nThursday, June 24, 2004 On Thursday, I did the most driving I\u0026rsquo;ve ever done in one day in my entire life. Originally, Dav, Ellen, and I had made plans of rotating drivers and giving the off-driver a chance to sleep. However, the two lovebirds were obviously having such a good time hanging out by themselves in their own car, that I ended up driving my car the whole way by myself.\nIronically, I was the most tired at the beginning of the drive (probably due to only getting 5 and a half hours of sleep), through the gently rolling hills and forests of east Texas. We were in Louisiana before I knew it, though, and from there it was just more and more of the same.\nSome bridge in some south-eastern state\nThe only problem was, it rained for roughly 95% of the trip. In fact, the only time I can remember seeing sunlight was when the above picture was taken. Not only did this slow us down, but the constant storms demanded a lot more mental control and energy to drive safely in. We finally passed through them just as night set in, after hitting the Florida panhandle.\nMe rocking out in my car, getting close to (or possibly in) Florida\nWe were in Florida for at least as much time as we were out of it; the panhandle is surprisingly long. Apart from stops for food and gas, though, we made good time. Right about Tallahassee, I started feeling a bit drowsy, so I pounded some of those caffeine drink things and pretended they would help.\nFriday, June 25, 2004 And that\u0026rsquo;s about all there is to tell; we stopped in Gainesville (home of the UF Gators) to drop off Ellen\u0026rsquo;s car, since David\u0026rsquo;s was in Orlando and they could drive that up the next day. So Ellen, David, and Hunter Trek (Ellen\u0026rsquo;s dog) slept soundly in my little car as I drove the last 2 hours home. We finally pulled in around 2 or 3 am, and my parents welcomed us into the townhouse that serves as their interim home, and is where I still live.\nAfter a lot of sleep, I woke up and began to unpack, a chore that would not finish for about a month (and still can\u0026rsquo;t be said to be complete, I suppose). David and Ellen drove back up to Gainesville to settle into their apartments and start summer school. And I braced myself for the next adventure: starting work!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/11/what-happened-since-graduation-pt-ii-road-trip-v2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eRoad Trip V2 is what my brother David (hereafter Dav, pronounced \u0026ldquo;Dave\u0026rdquo;) and I decided to call our cross-country road trip. On the morning we left San Francisco for Orlando, we printed out two TripTiks to guide us home, but by different routes. We ultimately chose the second one, hence \u0026ldquo;V2\u0026rdquo;. But V2 is also a climbers\u0026rsquo; rating of bouldering difficulty\u0026ndash;the rating that happened to be right at the top of Dav\u0026rsquo;s and my skill levels\u0026ndash;and since we planned on the road trip being a climbing road trip, it was fitting in that sense as well. So here is the chronicle of that 2-week adventure, replete with the most pictures of any entry in this series (I think).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What Happened Since Graduation, pt II: Road Trip V2"},{"content":"As I noted in the previous entry, it has been quite a long time since I said anything of substance on the weblog. Well, it\u0026rsquo;s time to catch up. So get ready for \u0026ldquo;What Happened Since Graduation\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;a weblog series in an as-yet-undertemined number of parts. We begin with \u0026ldquo;The Week of Graduation\u0026rdquo;. I guess technically this can\u0026rsquo;t cover any of the time since graduation (being before it), but that week is important, so we will cover it anyway.\nAll Spring Quarter, Dan Urban (companion of previous adventures) and I had been dreaming of doing another summer night hike of Half-Dome in Yosemite, like the one we did in the summer of 2002. Except this time we wanted to get all of our friends together for an end-of-college, last hurrah sort of adventure. Accordingly, we planned a night hike of Half-Dome for the night of Saturday, June 5, 2004, and invited just about everybody we knew.\nBeing somewhat climbingly oriented, Dan and I wanted to do a little more than just a night hike. We wanted to climb Half Dome via a route called Snake Dike, rumoured to be one of the funnest climbs in Yosemite, with stunning views. Snake Dike is (I think) a 9-pitch climb up the side of Half-Dome (not the back, where you can hike up, or the front, with its sheer face)\u0026ndash;around a thousand-foot climb. Certainly longer than anything I\u0026rsquo;ve done before (my longest route was a 2-pitch in Thailand. Snake Dike had a rating of 5.7R, which means a rating of 5.7 with \u0026ldquo;runout\u0026rdquo; pitches. 5.7 is just about the easiest rating\u0026ndash;in a gym, a route with that rating is often climbable by people who are climbing for the first time. Still, things are different outdoors, and when you have a 9-pitch route, with some bolted clips and some trad protection, it becomes another story. All the same, the climbing was well within my level, and well below Dan\u0026rsquo;s.\nThe \u0026ldquo;R\u0026rdquo; was a little scary though\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;runout\u0026rdquo; means that sometimes there is a very long way between bolts or protection points (which is where climbers put a piece of gear into a crack in the rock or into a bolt in order to provide protection in case they fall). The way lead climbing works is that, if you make a mistake and fall, if you are currently above the last piece of gear you placed, you will fall down to that gear, and then the same distance again, since you are on a rope (plus some rope stretch). Snake Dike reportedly had runouts of up to 75 feet. This meant that if a climber fell just before reaching the bolt which was 75 feet away from the last, he would fall 150 feet before the rope would go taut. Clearly, falling 150 feet is a bad idea. So: an easy route technically, but long and with no room for mistakes.\nDan and I tossed around the idea of climbing Snake Dike at night, while our friends hiked Half-Dome the normal route, and meeting them on the summit. But we threw away that notion because it was (a) too obviously dangerous, and (b) nullified our goal of hiking with our friends. Therefore, since it was absolutely necessary that our friends experience a night hike, as opposed to a day hike, Dan and I realized we would have to summit Half-Dome twice: once on Snake Dike during the day, and once with our friends at night. As we further looked at our schedules for our last week of school, we realized that we would have to accomplish all of this in a short amount of time, with relatively little rest in between endeavors.\nSo ultimately, the plan was this: drive to Yosemite on Friday the 4th, get an early sleep, wake up before dawn, climb Snake Dike, hike the 8 miles back down Half-Dome, eat dinner, meet our friends who would be arriving, hike back up the 8 miles of Half-Dome at night, greet the sunrise on the top, and then come back down. It seemed like a good plan, so we settled on it, and left Stanford at midday Friday as we had decided.\nThe drive to the Valley was successful, and we found a spot for our sleeping bags and camp stoves at Camp 4. This was illegal, since the camp was \u0026ldquo;full\u0026rdquo;, but we were planning on being out before the rangers came around the next morning, so we didn\u0026rsquo;t worry about it. Around 9:30 or 10:00 pm, we finally had eaten dinner and settled in for sleep. I slept well, but was nervous thinking about the long climb the next day.\nHalf-Dome in the sunset, taken while driving into Yosemite Valley\nWe woke up before 5am, packed up our gear, and drove to Happy Isles, which is at the base of the trail up Half-Dome. We were on the trail fairly quickly, for the hike to the base of Snake Dike. That hike follows the Half-Dome hiking trail for 3 or 4 strenuous miles, and then goes off-trail towards the dome (while the regular trail continues to circle around the dome).\nA view from the way to Snake Dike. The route itself follows the shadow on the left side of the dome up to the summit.\nSince there was no trail, we followed little cairns (piles) of rocks which previous climbers had used to mark the way. Sometimes these were devious guides, though, and led us in the wrong direction. But after about an hour of trucking through forests and even a swampy area, we came to the very base of the dome itself\u0026ndash;an area of slabs.\n\u0026ldquo;Slab\u0026rdquo;, in climbing terminology, just means any rock which is leaning away from you (as opposed to \u0026ldquo;overhang\u0026rdquo;, which is rock which is leaning towards you). If a wall is \u0026ldquo;slabby\u0026rdquo; enough, you can walk up it carefully without any ropes (just like you would walk up a steep hill). We saw that a series of cairns went up these slabs towards the base of Snake Dike so we followed them.\nThe foot of the slab approach to Snake Dike\nThe slabs kept getting steeper and steeper as we went up, and pretty soon I was feeling very unsecure with the shoes I had on, which were quite good trail running shoes, but lacked the sticky rubber of climbing shoes which enables one to put less foot surface area onto the rock while maintaining friction. We saw that we were getting closer, though, so I pressed on, with Dan a ways ahead (his shoes were slightly better suited to the task, having this climbing rubber). There were a few points where I had to make a sprint for a tree or some other anchor sideway across the slab, since if I moved any slower my shoes would fail and I would slide down however many hundreds of feet. Once you start sliding down a steep slab, it\u0026rsquo;s incredibly hard to stop\u0026ndash;and if you start tumbling, it\u0026rsquo;s pretty much over.\nFinally, I had made a lunge into a position which was impossible to get safely out of. The slab was too steep to press on, and the scree all around made it impossible to go down (since going down requires more friction than going up). Dan was fortunately able to get to a rock outcropping above me about 30 feet and blindly toss down a rope, after he had anchored himself around a tree. After a while I caught the rope and was able to pull myself up to Dan. From that vantage point, we could see that we had come up the wrong way\u0026ndash;while we had followed a few cairns, the vast majority of them did not go up the slabs immediately as we had done, but made a level path on the shallower slabs until it came to a more step-like and less slabby way up towards Snake Dike.\nNeedless to say, I was exhausted from the thousands of feet of hiking, the hundreds of feet of crazy slab running, and hauling myself up a rope. And in fact, being trapped on slab where I could not even rest my muscles fully had scared me pretty bad. So we hiked the last hour up the pretty grueling terrain to the base of the climb with a good bit of apprehension. But we had finally finished the non-climbing part of the climb. And it was 9am.\nLooking up from the base of Snake Dike\nIn the picture, you can see a dot a ways up. That\u0026rsquo;s a person climbing the route ahead of us. We had started at 5:30 am, and this group was at least an hour and a half ahead of us! That\u0026rsquo;s dedication. But to give you a sense of scale, the climber is not even a third of the way up the route.\nDan on a crazy runout\nHere we can see Dan on one of those really long runouts I was talking about. If he had fallen there, things would not have looked good for him (or me, if he landed on me). Luckily, Dan\u0026rsquo;s climbing prowess was not overestimated, and we made it to the end of the 9th pitch without any problems, a few exhilirating hours later. The climb wasn\u0026rsquo;t over then, though. We unroped and prepared for the last leg\u0026ndash;more slabs, but this time we had our climbing shoes on and the going was not as frightening. It was steep and difficult, however, and terribly aerobically taxing at almost 9,000 feet above sea level. Nothing was about to stop us at that point, though\u0026ndash;we finally made it!\nDan and I on the top, Sierras in the background\nAfter a brief rest (and a brief bask in the admiration of those hikers at the top who happened to notice we had come up the wrong side), we noticed it was about 2pm ( Snake Dike takes a long time when you make 1 person lead, as I made Dan, since you have to switch gear at every belay\u0026ndash;I wasn\u0026rsquo;t about to try any runouts!) and started the descent. We didn\u0026rsquo;t push ourselves and got down sometime in the late afternoon, probably between 4 and 5. So, at least 5 miles of uphill hiking, a thousand feet of climbing, and 8 miles of downhill hiking later, we were exhausted. We rewarded ourselves with an extra-large pizza and a pitcher of beer and joined a table of climbers who were a bit more seasoned than ourselves for some friendly conversation.\nAround 7:30 we settled back in our car seats for whatever nap we could get. I woke up around 9 and couldn\u0026rsquo;t get back to sleep, so I started preparing for the night hike, rearranging gear and packs and water and so on. After 10pm or so, our friends rolled in in a disorderly caravan of vehicles\u0026ndash;many more people than we had expected given the poor reception our invitation e-mail had received! All in all there were about 15 people ready to tackle the dark, bear-infested heights.\nWith so many people it took a while to get headlamps and packs in order, but we were starting up the John Muir trail not too long after 11\u0026ndash;just 18 hours after Dan and I had started our Snake Dike adventure. I had been feeling pretty exhausted, my legs were virtually destroyed, and I was worried that 16 more miles of hiking would be out of my reach. But everyone else\u0026rsquo;s excitement, the bright moon (we had planned it for a full moon), the crisp air, and the steady pace lifted my spirits and I felt ready to push again.\nA night hike of Half-Dome takes a fair bit longer than the same hike in the day, because much more care is required in order not to trip over hidden roots and stones, go off the edge into a waterfall, or slip on slick rocks. There were also a number of points where the trail itself is easy to lose, and Dan\u0026rsquo;s and my short term memory from earlier in the day proved valuable.\nThe group, which consisted of people at all levels of outdoors experience, went surprisingly quickly. We trekked through all the kinds of terrain there is on the beautiful hike up, and eventually made it past the \u0026ldquo;treeline\u0026rdquo; to the beautiful moon-reflecting granite near the summit. The panorama for the last hour of the hike is truly amazing in the moonlight, with all of Yosemite Valley clear, but ethereal and ghostly and quiet. And then we were at the Cables\u0026ndash;the last, very steep push up to the top of the dome, assisted by heavy cables you use to pull yourself up.\nWe arrived around 4am, making for just under a 5-hour hike\u0026ndash;not bad, especially for such a large group! I immediately began to fire up my stove and make some hot chocolate, because the sudden ceasing of movement gave me a deep chill. I had foolishly packed most of my technical hiking clothing away for moving to Florida, and was wearing layers of cotton, which, when soaked through with sweat, practically turned into ice in the 40-degree air and swift winds.\nThe small size of the picture doesn\u0026rsquo;t show it well, but this is a pretty sweet long-exposure shot of the stars above the sierras\nFrom there I degenerated physically pretty quickly, since I had spent all of my energy stores, and was now freezing cold. So I huddled rather miserably under a rock and awaited the sunrise. It came pretty soon, as you\u0026rsquo;d expect at high altitude, and flooded the Valley with amazing brilliance and beauty. It\u0026rsquo;s really impossible to describe how the light goes from non-existent, to gentle, to jewel-like, to fiery, to terrible and blazing, on the slopes of the Sierras.\nOur group played around on top for a while, exploring the large surface of the summit and making oatmeal on our stoves. Much of the wonder was lost on me, unfortunately\u0026ndash;not because I\u0026rsquo;d been to the top twice before, but because I had begun to feel very ill, and had no idea what was wrong with me. I figured it would pass, and so I pretended like everything was OK until we started the descent later on in the morning. I was helping some of my friends down the cables when I realized why I was feeling ill. Without further ado I let go of the cables and practically ran down, then up the next hill until I could find a suitably private spot. Then, with the help of some friendly bushes and an uncomfortably rough rock, my body was freed of the burden it had been carried, and which had made me ill! Of course, no one else in the group needed to know about this little scouting trip.\nThe cables head on look very steep\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s a fantastic optical illusion! (Credit: Dana Hornbeak)\nThat done, I was relieved that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t in any serious physical trouble, and was confident that I could make it down to the cars without any problems. Indeed, a number of us felt that it was better to jog down than to hike, to make use of gravity and allow our legs some more free movement. So the whole of us hiked and trotted down, not in any hurry, the 8 miles which had become so familiar to me over the past 30 hours.\nThe bulk of our group taking a break on the way down (Credit: Melanie Chuen)\nOne of the benefits of the night hike is that you meet very few other hikers on the trail, and you feel as if you have Half-Dome to yourself. On the way down, however, we met scores and scores of early-morning hikers getting a good start up Half-Dome, and it became very tedious and crowded. So for the last 2 miles or so, on the relatively easy downhill, I let loose and ran (along with a couple of other guys) for the finish, playing games like \u0026ldquo;dodge the hiker\u0026rdquo;.\nAnd then, it was over! We had made it to the base and walked the mile back to the cars. I was more exhausted than I\u0026rsquo;d ever been, but also exhilirated that Dan and I had pulled off an amazing expedition for ourselves, and one that all our friends had enjoyed too. The pain and soreness in my legs over the next week made me feel a little foolish for running the last bit, but I had final papers to contend with, so there wasn\u0026rsquo;t much room for regret.\nThe downside of coming back from that wonderful extended church service in Yosemite was that the coming back was to academic hell. Of course, I\u0026rsquo;d left plenty of work until the last few days, and so I scrambled to slap together some excellent work. Excellent work isn\u0026rsquo;t usually slapped together, but I thought it ought to be possible, so why the hell not? As it turns out, the work wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite as excellent as I\u0026rsquo;d hoped, but it was a good deal better than I\u0026rsquo;d thought it actually would be, and apparently my professors did too.\nSo on Wednesday, June 9, I walked out of Bldg 100 in the Stanford Quad, and had completely satisfied all my academic requirements for what is very probably ever. The next day, my grades were in and I had satisfied all the unit requirements for the BA and the MA in Philosophy\u0026ndash;with 0 extra units. I do like to cut it close. As exhilirating as the Half-Dome hike was, I don\u0026rsquo;t think that I\u0026rsquo;ve ever felt quite as much relief as on the day. Well, it spanned a couple days\u0026ndash;all the way through the night of graduation.\nGraduation weekend was spent packing and figuring out how on earth I would get all my stuff back to Florida. There were also parties to attend and lots of people to say goodbye to. Graduation itself was Sunday morning, and was unbearably hot under the California sun. But I didn\u0026rsquo;t care. I had my cool MA hood on and I allowed myself a little pride, just for effect, but mostly all I felt was relief. I received my two diplomas from our department head in the private department ceremony in the Philosophy department arcade.\nThen I loaded up my car, slapped my bike and snowboard on top, and drove to San Francisco for a family graduation dinner and party, with grandparents and aunts and uncles and everybody. It was simply amazing, and still all I could feel was relief. So I drank a good amount of vodka in praise to God and fell blissfully asleep.\nThus ended the longest and most significant chapter of my life (to date, anyway).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/11/what-happened-since-graduation-pt-i-the-week-of-graduation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAs I noted in the previous entry, it has been quite a long time since I said anything of substance on the weblog. Well, it\u0026rsquo;s time to catch up. So get ready for \u0026ldquo;What Happened Since Graduation\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;a weblog series in an as-yet-undertemined number of parts. We begin with \u0026ldquo;The Week of Graduation\u0026rdquo;. I guess technically this can\u0026rsquo;t cover any of the time \u003cem\u003esince\u003c/em\u003e graduation (being before it), but that week is important, so we will cover it anyway.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"What Happened Since Graduation, pt I: The Week of Graduation"},{"content":"Hello! Welcome back to the weblog of Jonathan Lipps. It\u0026rsquo;s been quite a little hiatus, forced on us when my web hosting company decided to erase all my data. I can\u0026rsquo;t remember a 6-month period, what\u0026rsquo;s more, that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have rather had a weblog to write in, about the things that have been going on. Hopefully over the next few weeks I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to catch up on some of the more major life changes and whatnot.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll notice the new title and design (becoming a yearly October tradition!) \u0026ndash; I hope you like it. The picture up top is from an amazing cathedral in Barcelona, my trip to which would have been eminently bloggable. The title comes from Pedro the Lion, of course. If you haven\u0026rsquo;t heard the song, go to the iTunes store and buy it now.\nWell, I\u0026rsquo;m actually a working man now (for Excelsis\u0026ndash;look back 3), so I\u0026rsquo;m heading to bed. Here\u0026rsquo;s to another year (i.e., 6 months) of webloggy goodness!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/10/priests-and-paramedics/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eHello! Welcome back to the weblog of Jonathan Lipps. It\u0026rsquo;s been quite a little hiatus, forced on us when my web hosting company decided to erase all my data. I can\u0026rsquo;t remember a 6-month period, what\u0026rsquo;s more, that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have rather had a weblog to write in, about the things that have been going on. Hopefully over the next few weeks I\u0026rsquo;ll be able to catch up on some of the more major life changes and whatnot.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Priests and Paramedics"},{"content":"In a shocking move of endearing humility, I am about to give the floor over to someone else. That is, I think Immanuel Kant has something to say which I would like him to say in his own (translated) words. This is from part 3 of Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, at 6:103.\n\u0026ldquo;The only faith that can found a universal church is pure religious faith, for it is a plain rational faith which can be convincingly communicated to everyone, whereas a historical faith, merely based on facts, can extend its influence no further than the tidings relevant to a judgment on its credibility can reach. Yet, due to a peculiar weakness of human nature, pure faith can never be relied on as much as it deserves, that is, [enough] to found a Church on it alone.\n\u0026ldquo;Conscious of their impotence in the cognition of supersensible things, and though they allow ever honor to be paid to faith in these things (as the faith which must carry conviction for them universally), human beings are yet not easily persuaded that steadfast zeal in the conduct of a morally good life is all that God requires of them to be his well-pleasing subjects in his Kingdom. They cannot indeed conceive their obligation except as directed to some service or other which they must perform for God\u0026ndash;wherein what matters is not the intrinsic worth of their actions as much as, rather, that they are performed for God to please him through passive obedience, however morally indifferent the actions might be in themselves. It does not enter their heads that, whenever they fulfill their duties toward human beings (themselves and others), by that very fact they also conform to God\u0026rsquo;s commands; hence, that in all their doings and non-doings, so far as these have reference to morality, they are constantly in the service of God; and that it is absolutely impossible to serve him more intimately in some other way (for they can act and exercise their influence on no other than earthly beings, not on God). Since every great lord of this world has a special need of being honored by his subjects, and of being praised through signs of submissiveness; nor can he expect, without this, as much compliance with his orders from his subjects as he needs to rule over them effectively; and, in addition, however reasonable a human being may be, he always finds an immediate pleasure in attestations of honor: so we treat duty, to the extent that it is equally God\u0026rsquo;s command, as the transaction of an affair of God, not of humans; and thus arises the concept of a religion of divine service instead of the concept of a purely moral religion.\u0026rdquo;\nOf course, what we really need is a purely moral religion, Kant wants to argue. Does this have the result that the contingent facts of Christianity are irrelevant to the real moral/spiritual truth? One way of reading Kant is that he thinks such facts are a crutch, and actually an inhibition to forming the right kind of ethical community (the Church). Then again, he realizes that such an ethical community is best founded on \u0026ldquo;a holy Scripture\u0026rdquo;. What does the indefinite article there admit of? Anyway, these are important paragraphs and everyone should think about them.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/05/purely-moral-religion/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn a shocking move of endearing humility, I am about to give the floor over to someone else. That is, I think Immanuel Kant has something to say which I would like him to say in his own (translated) words. This is from part 3 of \u003cem\u003eReligion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason\u003c/em\u003e, at 6:103.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The only faith that can found a universal church is \u003cem\u003epure religious faith\u003c/em\u003e, for it is a plain rational faith which can be convincingly communicated to everyone, whereas a historical faith, merely based on facts, can extend its influence no further than the tidings relevant to a judgment on its credibility can reach. Yet, due to a peculiar weakness of human nature, pure faith can never be relied on as much as it deserves, that is, [enough] to found a Church on it alone.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Purely Moral Religion"},{"content":"This quarter was supposed to be easy. I\u0026rsquo;m taking two classes, both of which are undergraduate courses, and one directed reading. A total of 10 units\u0026ndash;the fewest I\u0026rsquo;ve ever taken. I was supposed to have lots of free time to hang out with friends, go on trips, make money at my jobs, write music, and go cycling and running in the beautiful spring sun.\nBut somehow, I\u0026rsquo;ve turned into the biggest bundle of depressed stress I\u0026rsquo;ve been in a few years. I can\u0026rsquo;t possibly have as much work as I had in previous quarters, but somehow it seems all I\u0026rsquo;m doing is work, and somehow I\u0026rsquo;m still behind, yet without even the trade-off of hanging out with friends. Recently, I also found out I have to re-write a paper from last quarter in order to graduate, so all of a sudden it\u0026rsquo;s like I have an extra class.\nThen earlier on my campus bike was stolen, so I\u0026rsquo;ve had to walk to and from class once or twice a day, which adds at least a half-hour of nothing (I live almost a mile from class). Then last week I somehow forgot my really expensive noise-cancelling headphones on an airplane. Then splendourhyaline.com goes down, and neither the registrar nor the web hosting company sees fit to respond to any of my e-mails or phone calls. That should be (and probably is) illegal, but there\u0026rsquo;s nothing I can do about it now, even if I had time. It gets me so riled up I want to hit something, but usually I just think nasty phrases in my head.\nBasically, a lot of the things on the periphery of my life are falling apart, so to speak; these are things that are not essential but whose presence and functioning I took for granted. Since they\u0026rsquo;re not really essential, when they go, I try to tell myself not to bitch about it; after all, compared to most of the world I\u0026rsquo;m insanely rich and pampered and if I really care that much about my noise-cancelling headphones, well, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a scary life ahead of me. All the same, given the timing of it all, my patience is being sorely tried on all fronts: school, financial, physical (I was sick for a few weeks), emotional (seeing your friend get married is awesome, sort of like dying of thirst while your buddy\u0026rsquo;s got a brand new case of Evian), and spiritual. Needless to say, such trials are unwelcome as I face my last month of college, drawing as they do a picture of gloom and an expectation of a hard, gasping crawl to the finish line, instead of the leisurely stroll that I\u0026rsquo;d planned on. Well, whatever. I don\u0026rsquo;t even want to think about it.\nOf course, lots of good things are happening too, though my mind allows them to be overshadowed by the threat of final papers due. The last two weekends were awesome, as I went to Atlanta for the aforementioned wedding, and then to Orlando, where I was able to see Pedro the Lion, Over the Rhine, Ester Drang, and several other awesome bands, as well as (more importantly) hang out with my family and hug my mom on Mother\u0026rsquo;s Day. Incidentally, I picked up the vinyl version of Over the Rhine\u0026rsquo;s recent record and got Karin and Linford to sign it, which was awesome, especially after practically weeping at the beauty of their live performance.\nUnrelatedly, but more or less simultaneously with all these other things, I also went through a couple days of very intense self-history. For a sort of group project I was doing with some close friends, I mapped out over 500 events that happened in my life since the day I was born, with an eye to their significance. This included (as it always does) those deep-dark-secret type things, as well as various errata that most people wouldn\u0026rsquo;t consider significant but that somehow held meaning in my life or were a turning point of some kind (for example, how I treated the girl I had a crush on in third grade). I am still sorting through the aftermath of that endeavor, since I\u0026rsquo;ve never quite seen my life from such a bird\u0026rsquo;s-eye perspective, and I\u0026rsquo;m somewhat disoriented. But, as I hoped, certain themes began to spell themselves out in relatively stark relief, and I am not quite sure how to deal with these aspects of me that were uncovered. While this truth is refreshing, it is also debilitating, and with everything else that is going on I think I have tended to hopelessness in my relationship with it so far, instead of hope. May that return.\nAnyhow, this is all just to say that I am decidedly less sanguine about this quarter now than when I started, and I want to kick something in the knees for taking away my sunny dreams for it. No doubt in the future I\u0026rsquo;ll be glad for the struggles; maybe it will make being done that much sweeter. I certainly can\u0026rsquo;t imagine anything sweeter right now than never taking another class again (so yes, that means plans for going on to a PhD program are being reconsidered and postponed indefinitely). Well, one month to go. See you when it\u0026rsquo;s over.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/05/home-stretch-i-wish/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis quarter was supposed to be easy. I\u0026rsquo;m taking two classes, both of which are undergraduate courses, and one directed reading. A total of 10 units\u0026ndash;the fewest I\u0026rsquo;ve ever taken. I was supposed to have lots of free time to hang out with friends, go on trips, make money at my jobs, write music, and go cycling and running in the beautiful spring sun.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut somehow, I\u0026rsquo;ve turned into the biggest bundle of depressed stress I\u0026rsquo;ve been in a few years. I can\u0026rsquo;t possibly have as much work as I had in previous quarters, but somehow it seems all I\u0026rsquo;m doing is work, and somehow I\u0026rsquo;m still behind, yet without even the trade-off of hanging out with friends. Recently, I also found out I have to re-write a paper from last quarter in order to graduate, so all of a sudden it\u0026rsquo;s like I have an extra class.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Home Stretch (I Wish)"},{"content":"Last summer, I interned for a company in Orlando called Excelsis. The hallmark, perhaps, of that experience, was never quite knowing what exactly Excelsis was doing (or, since it is more or less a start-up, what it aims to do), or what I was doing for Excelsis. Accordingly, it was always very difficult to answer either the question, \u0026ldquo;Oh, so what do they do?\u0026rdquo;, or the question \u0026ldquo;What do you do for them?\u0026rdquo; I fabricated a set of answers to each that I felt reasonably honest in giving, but you would be surprised at how much they varied. At different stages before, during, and after my internship, I described Excelsis as a publishing company, a think-tank, an academic consortium, a distance-learning provider, a networker, a producer of theology curriculum, a software development house, and various other things. In fact, I think the problem was that the object of my analysis was just plain vague\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;m not sure Excelsis knew what it was!\nOf course, vagueness has its value, and for me that was being able to manufacture the perfect description for the particular person asking about the company. If I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to give her the impression that it was very much linked to specifically evangelical Christian theology, I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to. If I wanted to be especially curt, I could usually just say I was doing web design, and people would stop asking questions. That\u0026rsquo;s another thing\u0026ndash;the lack of clarity on the company I was interning for spread also to my own job description. I never knew from day to day what I would be doing, and it was rarely what I expected. Obviously, I liked this situation, and it worked well for me, since I never really had time to get bored with a particular project to the point where I was trying to find ways to make it look like I was working on it while really surfing the internet. On the other hand, I did, I will admit, write a good many weblog entries while at work.\nThe highlight of my internship was attending a seminar, put on by Excelsis, taught by Graham Tomlin of Wycliffe Hall at Oxford. In many ways, that seminar was the organizing agent of all the confused and scattered thoughts on culture and religion I\u0026rsquo;d had over the course of my Stanford education (not implying that Stanford had anything to do with the thoughts). Its title was the same as a recent book by Graham, called The Provocative Church, and the subject matter was, for lack of a less clichÈ concept, the relationship between modernism and postmodernism.\nDuring the sessions of the seminar, I realized I had a very narrow idea of the interplay between modernism and postmodernism. Like most of my philosophical knowledge before \u0026ldquo;purification\u0026rdquo;/\u0026ldquo;objectification\u0026rdquo;, it arose as a result of apologetic endeavors. That is, I viewed \u0026ldquo;postmodernism\u0026rdquo; as nothing more than a longer version of \u0026ldquo;relativism\u0026rdquo;, and therefore the enemy of true Christian faith. As it turns out, I was completely wrong on the definition, and the inference is decidedly less clear than it used to be.\nIn any case, I began to see postmodernism not as a well-formulated though anti-logical doctrine, but instead as a haphazard jumble of values, cultures, literatures, emotions, semi-philosophical thoughts, and the like, that had one common thread: a deep suspicion that modernism, or the de facto state of the world for the past however long, was not going to bring us to utopia. With this realization, many floodgates were opened, and I saw that, to my surprise, I really had more in common with what I would now call the \u0026ldquo;postmodern\u0026rdquo; than the \u0026ldquo;modern\u0026rdquo;. Indeed, I saw that many of my struggles with church, with philosophy, with the apologetic approach to Christianity, were the struggles of a postmodern soul seeking refuge from antisepticity, but likewise afraid of going the other direction to pure, dirty, rawness.\nComplexity abounds, though, so I would not go so far as to simply proclaim \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m postmodern\u0026rdquo;. As I\u0026rsquo;ve mentioned, it\u0026rsquo;s not clear what exactly that even means, and whether it is more a positive or more a negative concept. Looked at as a philosophy, there are no doubt things I will want to take up and things I won\u0026rsquo;t, just as with modernism, which gave us valuable fields like analytic philosophy. There are other ways to look at it, though, and maybe more important than the philosophical viewpoint is the cultural viewpoint. I like to think that I am a very culturally aware person (to a painful degree at times, especially when with people who are less so), and if this awareness extends to myself, I will be right if I say that I am in many (if not most) ways uncomfortable in \u0026ldquo;modern\u0026rdquo; cultures, and more comfortable in \u0026ldquo;postmodern\u0026rdquo; environments. This must be qualified by saying that the kind of postmodernism I am discussing is not the variety that has run, fad-like, through many of today\u0026rsquo;s churches. Youth group leaders are eager to chop off their hair, get an earring or 3, turn off the lights, burn incense, spout phrases like \u0026ldquo;lectio divina\u0026rdquo; and so on, while remaining at the core perfectly modern. As far as I am concerned. I am not talking about that.\nBut enough with the labeling that I don\u0026rsquo;t want to get into anyhow. The point is, I felt like I was given just the right lens through which I could analyze the unanswered questions of my personality, my relationships with people, and my faith. The main point of the seminar, of course, was on the engagement of the Christian church with this dynamic of the postmodern replacing the modern, and therefore useful to the entire community present, not just myself individually.\nSadly, the analyzing I spoke of is not yet done, though I\u0026rsquo;ve been working on it for this entire school year. That might end up taking longer than I thought.\nRight now, Excelsis is working on turning that seminar experience into an interactive learning tool which will essentially become a self-contained class on DVD. Having seen a prototype of the interface (and having transcribed a good deal of the text from the lectures, Q\u0026amp;A sessions, and so on), I am really excited to see how the final product looks. I can only think that, if it was the perfect vehicle for propelling me into a completely different mode of thinking about things, it could very well do the same for many other people. And then we\u0026rsquo;re one step closer to influencing Christians to be more aware of what is going on around them. (Ironically, I went into philosophy hoping ultimately to be able to influence non-Christians to come to faith, but now I think I am more concerned with the Christians, as we are in what appears to be a rapidly sinking ship).\nOver the past year, Excelsis has (in my intern\u0026rsquo;s opinion) grown up and grown more focused. Seeing progress on the project which before was sketched out only in ideas and dreams, and seeing plans to hold four more seminars this summer, has given me a sense of what Excelsis is about (or one of the things it is about) and what it has the potential to do. Moreover, they\u0026rsquo;ve hired a few more people, bringing the total team size to a whopping less-than-10. It\u0026rsquo;s a good thing I like this team (of which Pavi and Faith keep weblogs of their own), though, because I have agreed to work for Excelsis after graduating. In other words, I have a job! As a soon-to-be-philosophy-graduate, this is more than I can expect, ask for, or even dream about.\nHonestly, I am excited about Excelsis because it seems like it could be, for me anyway, the next chapter of a good story. The next step towards Mt. Doom, if my story is an epic. (I hope it is. In epics, depending on what character you are, you actually find the beautiful warrior princess you are looking for. Sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s even more towards the front of the book!).\nLuckily for me, that next step is not through the ash-ridden plains of Gorgoroth, but to Orlando, FL, well-nigh paradaisical! Living at home with my parents (and occasionally, my sister or brother) will be awesome, and I can\u0026rsquo;t wait to finish up here, pack up my car, stick my bike on the rack, and drive cross-country just so I can start my new life there. I\u0026rsquo;m always ready to start a new stage in life\u0026ndash;to wash the staleness of the old one off: to reset, tabula rasa style, and commit once again to avoid compromise, to love people, to believe in people, to give God another chance to show his face, and all the rest.\nFor now, it\u0026rsquo;s time to put my head down and stick it to the man! That is, finish well and actually graduate. But I\u0026rsquo;ll have a toast nonetheless: to the future!\n(PS: For more info about Excelsis, including an idea of some of their initiatives that I did not mention, you might as well go to the website: excelsis.cc.)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/04/excelsis/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast summer, I interned for a company in Orlando called Excelsis. The hallmark, perhaps, of that experience, was never quite knowing what exactly Excelsis was doing (or, since it is more or less a start-up, what it aims to do), or what I was doing for Excelsis. Accordingly, it was always very difficult to answer either the question, \u0026ldquo;Oh, so what do they do?\u0026rdquo;, or the question \u0026ldquo;What do you do for them?\u0026rdquo; I fabricated a set of answers to each that I felt reasonably honest in giving, but you would be surprised at how much they varied. At different stages before, during, and after my internship, I described Excelsis as a publishing company, a think-tank, an academic consortium, a distance-learning provider, a networker, a producer of theology curriculum, a software development house, and various other things. In fact, I think the problem was that the object of my analysis was just plain vague\u0026ndash;I\u0026rsquo;m not sure \u003cem\u003eExcelsis\u003c/em\u003e knew what it was!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Excelsis"},{"content":"Since I have been unable to go to church, for the past year or so, without feeling various degrees of discomfort and displeasure, I decided to forego it this Easter in lieu of a different kind of worship. You see, I thought that the best thing to do to commemorate Christ\u0026rsquo;s resurrection would be that which most uses the benefits of it. If we are right in the matter, Christ rose again to institute the redemption of humanity, so I wanted my act of worship to be an outpouring of my own redeemed humanity.\nNothing feels to me like it has been more redeemed in my own person (and by \u0026ldquo;redeemed\u0026rdquo; I just mean, \u0026ldquo;rescued from its \u0026rsquo;natural\u0026rsquo; state and returned to its truly natural state\u0026rdquo;) than creativity. I am at the core a creator, a designer, a crafter of words and music and ideas, and ultimately systems and worlds. I can\u0026rsquo;t help but think God, if he thinks of these things in the same concepts as we do, gets enjoyment watching me fashion my toy-block castles down here, in mimicry of his creating the cosmos. Anyway, I wanted my Easter service to be centered around an expression of this faculty of mine.\nLast year, my creative Easter act was to write two monologues (entitled Friday and Sunday), the first from the point of view of Judas, and the second from that of Mary Magdalene. It was the first time I\u0026rsquo;d ever taken a given time and set it apart for creative work as a specific act of worship. But I was so moved by the process that I hoped I could, in doing something similar this year, have \u0026ldquo;church\u0026rdquo; here in my room in a way that would be maximally meaningful for me. (Incidentally, even though I did not plan on going to church, I somehow ended up at Catholic mass, a first-time venture for me and very interesting).\nSo, I invite you all to see the result of this year\u0026rsquo;s endeavor. It happened to be a song, which I am tentatively calling \u0026ldquo;Liability\u0026rdquo; and which I wrote and recorded today. The lyrics are semi-opaque as usual, but I think they are extremely relevant to the Easter story, since the song poses some questions to which I think the Easter story provides good and meaningful answers. The kind of answers I cling to with that tenuous hope of mine, not quite willing to let go.\nAlso as usual, the recording was rather hasty, and this should only be considered a rough cut. But here it is, and I hope that, even though Easter is done for the year, the song might remind you (or make you ask yourself) why you believe the story, if you are one that does.\n- Liability -\nWrapped up in blankets / Numb from the shock / Blind from horrors / How could God let this occur? / They were innocent / Young and so much left / The bastards on the evening news were so composed / With suits that didnít smell of blood or burning hair / Calmly they proceeded to explain the tragedy / Was caused by shoddy wiring in the plants overseas / They were innocent / Young and so much left / Empires crumble on their own / But now we have so many ways to kill ourselves / When will there be something new? / When will there be something that frees us? / When will there be something real? / We need to see something come back to life / We were innocent / We\u0026rsquo;re young with so much left / Empires crumble on their own / But we have learned so many ways to fool ourselves / We were innocent / So come and bring us back\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/04/he-is-risen/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSince I have been unable to go to church, for the past year or so, without feeling various degrees of discomfort and displeasure, I decided to forego it this Easter in lieu of a different kind of worship. You see, I thought that the best thing to do to commemorate Christ\u0026rsquo;s resurrection would be that which most uses the benefits of it. If we are right in the matter, Christ rose again to institute the redemption of humanity, so I wanted my act of worship to be an outpouring of my own redeemed humanity.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"He is Risen"},{"content":"We are all longing, no doubt, for those glorious days when I used to actually talk about things, instead of relate events. My hope is that those days will return, but before they do, I feel I have a duty to discharge\u0026ndash;namely, telling about my many spring break adventures. This could potentially be a long entry, so for those short on time I have embedded pictures, which are easier to read than words.\nWe have already heard how I went home to Orlando in mid-March, frantically wrote a term paper, then came back to Stanford for dead week (a semantically uninteresting term referring to the week before finals week), along with my family. The night before I left for Thailand, I stayed for the first time in our family\u0026rsquo;s awesome new San Francisco apartment we are renting for my dad.\nView from the apartment window; that\u0026rsquo;s the Bay Bridge.\nThe next morning my brother, sister, and dad flew back to Orlando while my mom and I got on a plane to Tokyo\u0026ndash;the first leg of our trip to Thailand. Because American Airlines loves us so much, we flew business class for the almost 11 hours. Unfortunately for me, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to fully enjoy the free drinks or personal movie device, since I was planning and outlining for the second of my three term papers; this one was for my theories of truth class.\nWe had a short layover in Tokyo, then got on a Cathay Pacific plane to Hong Kong. I decided that flying coach in a 747 is to flying business in a 777 as \u0026ldquo;sucky\u0026rdquo; is to \u0026ldquo;awesome\u0026rdquo;. After 5 hours of wondering why Asian people are generally smaller, more compact, and more courteous than Americans, and being glad that I am not what you\u0026rsquo;d consider a large person, we landed in Hong Kong, and checked into the airport hotel to await our flight to Bangkok. We had crossed the International Date Line, always a fun thing to do, so it was now something like 36 hours after we left (only about 19 or so of which were real).\nIn Hong Kong we met up with my friend Samuel Chan, with whom my mom and I were in Honduras, back in 2001, and who had, through various trips, become friends with our family. His parents and he had been kind enough to suggest that we use the few hours we had in Hong Kong to our advantage, and take a midnight tour of the city. Needless to say, I was excited about the opportunity, not only because I\u0026rsquo;d never been to China (admittedly, Hong Kong is very different than many parts of the country that come to mind when someone says \u0026ldquo;China\u0026rdquo;), but because a night tour of a city is always cool.\nHong Kong is a huge place, and it took us a while to get from the new airport to something like the city center. The first thing we did was to have an authentic Chinese dinner at about midnight, at a small shop on some street somewhere, surprisingly busy for being so late. Maybe due to the fact that none of the dishes we shared corresponded very closely to the Chinese food we have in the States, I thought it was much better.\nFrom there we checked out some shopping centers and what have you, then drove up to the summit of a range of hills between which and the sea Hong Kong is nestled. We got some good views of the city proper, amazing with its lights in the night.\nYes, that is a national monument. Yes, I am climbing it.\nAwesome view of Hong Kong\nSince at that point we\u0026rsquo;d spent a few hours driving around and checking stuff out, I thought the Chans would deposit us back at our hotel, but they were hyped up about giving us a good tour, so we caught a few more main sights.\nThe water front\nPicture of me and Sam\nIn regards to that last picture, apparently the graffiti on the column there was written by a very famous crazy person, who claimed to be King or Emperor of China or something. The writing details the evidence for his claim to the throne. Supposedly, this is a major tourist attraction, and the Chans were very adamant about me taking a picture with it. I am now thinking that this was all a ploy: the writing no doubt says something like, \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m a stupid American, look at me taking pictures by this dumb pole as if it were a major tourist attraction.\u0026rdquo;\nWell, time wore on, and about 3 or 4am, the Chans dropped us off at the airport for a few hours\u0026rsquo; sleep before our flight. Actually getting on that flight proved to be a bit difficult, since the customs officer at Hong Kong did not believe that I was actually me. The pictures on both my passport and driver\u0026rsquo;s license are both from when I was 16 (and neither close to expiring, actually), and I don\u0026rsquo;t really look like I did when I was 16. So after holding up the line for 15 minutes, grilling me about where I lived and so on, he finally asked me for my signature. Of course, I\u0026rsquo;ve changed my signature since I was 16 too, so he wasn\u0026rsquo;t really convinced. Ultimately he got some second opinions from other personnel and let me through, to our relief.\nAnother short Cathay Pacific flight later, we were in Thailand, waiting for our domestic flight to Chiang Mai. I was still depressed about my lack of progress on term papers, so we waited in a bar where I could drink Heineken while working. Anyway, we were on board the commuter 747 (!) soon enough and landed an hour later, to be picked up by our hosts, the Fains. The Fains are friends of my parents from Orlando who had moved to Thailand in January to pursue missionary work there, and, importantly, they had offered us lodging!\nChiang Mai turned out to be hot and dusty, clogged with the smoke of burning brush and slash-and-burn farming techniques\u0026ndash;just the kind of international place I like! The Fains lived not far from the airport (window-rattlingly close, in fact), in a great little house which was to be our base for the next few days. The first order of business for me was to contact Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures, whom I was hoping to hire to show me some good rock climbing in the area. I got them on the phone and finalized plans for the next day, then settled in to work on my truth paper before bed.\nThe next day the climbing guide folks picked me up early, got me all signed up, and sent me with my guide Son (amongst some other folks) to the local crag, about 30 minutes away. What followed was an amazing and intense day, where I led two single-pitch climbs (probably mid-5.9) and followed two double-pitch climbs (5.10 or higher, maybe). The climbs themselves were really interesting, all overhanging and gymnastic with bomber holds and pumpy sequences. At points I stopped to think and realized I was basically campusing almost 300 feet up in the air. Anyway, enough with climbing jargon. Here\u0026rsquo;s some pictures.\nFar-off view of the crag, Crazy Horse Buttress. Probably at or just below 300 ft of vert.\nLooking up at the first pitch of an awesome climb that went up through a cave, then around and out a face.\nClose-up view of the top of the crag, from the summit of a single-pitch climb.\nNeedless to say, after 6 pitches of climbing in a hundred-degree swelter, I was tired. But after parting ways with the climbing guides (they gave me a free t-shirt!), it was dinner time, so I got ready to go out with everyone. Now, food was one of the best things about Thailand. First of all, it is cheap. I don\u0026rsquo;t recall if we ever paid more than the equivalent of 50 cents or a dollar for an entire meal. Secondly, it tastes great. And I had Chinese and Indian food there as well that made all the stuff I\u0026rsquo;ve had in the States pale in comparison. Anyways, after dinner at a local shopping mall thing, and picking up a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in Thai (who knows, I\u0026rsquo;d like to learn Thai someday), we were on our way to another of the best things we experienced in Thailand: a two-hour Thai massage.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve never had a professional massage in my life, of any kind, but after a day of climbing it sounded like a really good idea. And let me tell you, it was. All 8 or so of us (our group had expanded to include various other Americans) were herded into one room, where we each had a pallet and a masseuse. They worked on us, talking between themselves as if they were folding clothes when they were really contorting our limbs into various oddly possible positions. At the end of the full-body massage, my muscles literally felt to my hands all gooey and buttery, and I think I fell asleep a few times on my way to the door. All for under $10, if you can believe that!\nOur next and last full day in Chiang Mai, we took a guided tour of the city and the surrounding areas, which included, inter alia, elephant rides! As I said before, elephants are large beasts. Indeed, I sat on one\u0026rsquo;s head, and it was not only large, but prickly and smelly too. Very endearing, though. Our elephant driver allowed me to take over for about half the ride through the forest, teaching me the commands to tell the elephant to go left or right. I must not have been doing very well, though, since our beast liked to take lots of snack breaks and eat plants, even when I told it to keep going, or it would let all the other elephant rides win the fastest and least scatter-brained elephant award!\nScenery from the back of an elephant\nMore scenery\nMy mom and I on the elephant. I\u0026rsquo;m sitting on its head.\nOther perks of the tour were an ox-cart ride and a bamboo raft ride, all through some pretty sweet Thailandscapes.\nRice fields (?) from the ox-cart\nThey also let me pole the raft for a while. Cool sombrero!\nAfter some hours of these expeditions, we were tired, but the guide company would have none of it. We went to a paper-making facility where they were making paper out of elephant dung. During the how-to session, someone was explaining how the dung is purified during one step, and then in the next steps people can handle it safely. To me, it just looked like they were playing with the dung of elephants, but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t deny that eventually it turned into paper. I even bought an elephant-dung journal, mostly because I feel there has to be something very ironically symbolic about that. Lastly, we visited an orchid-and-butterfly farm. The orchids were pretty surreal, growing as they were free of any soil, roots hanging happily in the air.\nOne of my favorite orchids from the farm\nEventually we made it back home, and turned right around for our last adventure: the Chiang Mai Night Market. Or, Night Bazaar, or many other names. Place Where You Get Fake Stuff for Cheap is what I like to call it. It looked like many other third-world-ish markets I\u0026rsquo;ve been to, and it was fun to brush up on my haggling skills. Still, I often overestimated the value of various products, coming, perhaps, as I did from the States. For instance, I got a shirt I wanted down to the price of $2.50, only to see it advertised at another vendor for about $1. I was incensed until I realized I was talking about a difference of $1.50. The best buy of the evening was a technical climbing backpack, made by \u0026ldquo;North Face\u0026rdquo;, for $15. It will probably fall apart soon but looks great!\nAnd that was about it for Chiang Mai! I did, thankfully, finish my term paper on truth that last night before we left, but unfortunately had an entire one left to do, and the trip almost done. Anyhow, the next day the Fains drove us to the airport and we got back without incident to Bangkok. Since our flight out of Bangkok (straight to Tokyo this time) didn\u0026rsquo;t leave till the next day, we had opted to stay at the Peninsula Hotel in Bangkok, a world-class 5-star hotel which we could only afford to stay in at Thailand, given the extremely low cost of living and all. No need to mention prices, but I\u0026rsquo;ve stayed in Best Westerns for as much. Needless to say, it was an interesting treat, but I probably shouldn\u0026rsquo;t get used to being picked up at the airport with bottles of Evian and a Rolls-Royce.\nThe last highlight of the trip with my mom is that we were able to get a tailor to come to our hotel room and make us some high-quality suits, at prices far below US rates. For myself, I came out of the deal with two tailor-made suits, five shirts, and a tie.\nThat part of our trip was over all too soon, and the next morning early we boarded our Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo, where we would catch our 777 back to San Jose. Since said 777 was operated by American, we again flew business class, and I worked on my last final paper, on possibility and necessity, for the entire duration of the 10-hour flight. I actually finished just as we began our descent, and felt at last free from Winter Quarter 2004. It\u0026rsquo;s a shame that I couldn\u0026rsquo;t enjoy the trip to Thailand a little bit more, however, and I have decided that I need to go back and live there for a while to make up for it.\nAnyhow, my mom and I parted ways at the airport since she connected on to Orlando, and so I went back to Stanford for a day and a half. That Saturday, I got in a car with Dan, Jon Parr, Tyson, and Justin (roommates from Stanford) and we drove to Park City, Utah. Well, before that I stayed up all night packing and discovering that my campus bike had been stolen (damn!), and that I had an overdue DVD out from the library. Oh well. Adventure behind and adventure ahead, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t balk at a little adversity, even if it was my own stupid fault for not leaving the machine locked. So we drove the 10 hours to Utah without incident, stopping at Willemucca or some God-forsaken place for lunch, where I found the Saddest Round Table Pizza in the World. Seriously, this run-down hole was not only in bad structural and hygienic condition, the people who were eating there were the saddest I have ever seen. There was even a kid having his 12th birthday party there, with like one friend. It was the saddest birthday party I have ever seen. I ate a slice or two from the saddest buffet I have ever seen (it consisted, honestly, of two personal-pan pizzas, half-gone by the time I got there), and left feeling altogether better about my life.\nThe rest of the drive was spent playing video games while my companions listened to Stanford losing in the NCAAs on the radio. Enjoyable for me, but then again I didn\u0026rsquo;t care about basketball. Everyone else seemed to be depressed, so I made fun of them for being depressed about sports. They got mad at me for some reason.\nEventually we pulled into Dan\u0026rsquo;s condo at Park City, where we were to stay until Wednesday. But not till after we shopped for food at the local Albertsons, where we discovered that, in Utah, all liquor/cigar stores are State-run and closed on Sundays, holidays, evenings, lunch breaks, during snow storms, during rain, and during sunshine. Moreover, all the beer in grocery stores have an alcohol content of no more than 3.2%. Now, I don\u0026rsquo;t really care so much about alcohol content, but this seemed to me ludicrous. Or perhaps sensible. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. Anyway, I had been planning on making my signature dish\u0026ndash;chicken con broccoli over angel hair pasta in a garlic wine-butter sauce\u0026ndash;but we couldn\u0026rsquo;t find any wine.\nThe next day, Sunday, I slept in, and kept sleeping, while the rest went to Salt Lake City to check out the Mormon temple or what have you. To me, sitting in the cabin and reading and playing video games sounded funner, so I did that. Then, we got pumped up for skiing by watching Bowling for Columbine, a very excellent movie.\nAnd at last we get to the mountain (skipping some sleeping and minor details\u0026hellip;). The conditions were relatively good early on, but since it was about 60 degrees on the slopes, things got slushy quick. Still, I had a great day and felt really comfortable on the board, keeping up solidly with the rest of the guys (who were all skiers).\nThe intrepid adventurers at the base\nSince it was cloudy but not raining or snowing, a business day, and between the hours of 4 and 4:30, we found an open liquor store and bought some wine so I could make my dinner, which was very tasty. Then we all got ourselves some glasses of fine spirits and watched The Ladies Man, a movie that never ceases to shock me. Awesome nonetheless.\nThis is getting long, so let me cut to the chase: the next day we drove down to BYU for some reason and played mini-golf, which I lost. Last place lost. Then some more movies followed, some sleep and so on, and eventually a drive to Las Vegas, where we checked in to the Mirage hotel. Vegas is a town I would never want to live in. We played that night at the Bellaggio. I set myself a limit of $40 and proceeded to immediately win $15 at video poker. Believing myself invincible, I decided to throw away $20 at roulette. Then, to the slots, for about 20 minutes of the most depressing shit I have ever experienced. To my left and right, fat people with buckets of quarters, the machines reading \u0026ldquo;425 credits\u0026rdquo;, spinning and spinning, not even looking at whether they were winning, mindlessly pulling the lever and draining their lives into nothingness. And I joined them, as if in a trance, until I realized I had $5 left. Even then it was hard to pick up and walk away.\nFinally I tried my hand at blackjack, and got back up to $55, when I decided, mostly as a result of the lesson slots taught me, that up was up and up was good and up meant time to leave. The 5 of us walked around Vegas some more until we all agreed that it was depressing and burdensome just to be out on the streets. I had heard that it was commonplace to receive pornographic advertisements from people passing out flyers on streets, so I made sure to keep my hands in my pockets and tried to keep my eyes from wandering over the \u0026ldquo;business\u0026rdquo; cards strewn over the ground. But I wasn\u0026rsquo;t prepared to see smut being passed out by small Mexican women wearing red t-shirts that said, \u0026ldquo;For Immediate Service, call \u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; I couldn\u0026rsquo;t decide whether to be angry or sad or guilty or innocent. But I did know that someone somewhere was being wronged somehow in a particularly egregious way. Whatever.\nWe couldn\u0026rsquo;t wait to get out of the place, despite the fact that we all ended up winning money from the Bellaggio, and so the next morning we got out of town and headed for Orange County, where we had planned to while away the remaining days of Spring Break 2004 at Dan\u0026rsquo;s house in Mission Viejo. Notice the pattern of using Dan for his homes! And that\u0026rsquo;s exactly what we did\u0026ndash;we went to the beach, played a few tournaments of whiffleball, walked the dog, watched Waiting for Guffman, ate Dan\u0026rsquo;s mom\u0026rsquo;s delicious cooking, sailed around Newport Harbor in a Duffy boat drinking box wine, and had what could only be called a rather fat and indolent time. In other words, a wonderful time.\nTo top things off, three of us lucky contestants got to fly home to Palo Alto in Dan\u0026rsquo;s dad\u0026rsquo;s airplane. Since I sat co-pilot, he even let me fly the thing for about 45 minutes. No joke. I followed waypoints, changed elevations, and even descended into Palo Alto. And now I am addicted to it. Sadly, the only thing I\u0026rsquo;ll ever be a pilot of will be a flight sim, unless I somehow become spontaneously rich.\nOur bird. I mean, Dan\u0026rsquo;s dad\u0026rsquo;s bird.\nWith that, the vacation was over, and it was back to Stanford for my last and final quarter. That\u0026rsquo;s last and final. Lord willing. And so, there is a rather long-winded account of the last break from school I\u0026rsquo;m ever likely to have (unless I go on for a PhD or something).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/04/spring-break-2004/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWe are all longing, no doubt, for those glorious days when I used to actually talk about things, instead of relate events. My hope is that those days will return, but before they do, I feel I have a duty to discharge\u0026ndash;namely, telling about my many spring break adventures. This could potentially be a long entry, so for those short on time I have embedded pictures, which are easier to read than words.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Spring Break 2004"},{"content":"I am on my way, in just about two hours, to Park City, Utah, with my suitemates. We\u0026rsquo;re going to do some skiing (snowboarding for me), and some hardcore lounging about. In keeping with that latter spirit, we\u0026rsquo;ll be driving to Orange County for the second half of next week; may sun and good times prevail! But since I felt it was a bit mean to have all that fun without even saying anything at all about Thailand, I thought I would leave you with this word: Elephants are large beasts! It\u0026rsquo;s true. I didn\u0026rsquo;t see very many bigger beasts in Thailand except for, obviously, larger elephants than the ones to which I referred in the last sentence. And the sky, if you count that as a beast. Also, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what my friends were talking about (see previous post), but I didn\u0026rsquo;t see any hookers at all. Just in case you were worried that I might be led astray into wantonness. And by saying I didn\u0026rsquo;t see any, that is not to imply that the not seeing was the failed result of a looking for. There was no looking for either! Oh well, I should stop talking about hookers, none of which I saw, wanted to see (qua hooker of course; qua human I would want to see them just as I would any other person. Hookers are people too!), or tried to see. And now, the end.\nFrom a bamboo raft\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/03/elephants-are-large-beasts/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI am on my way, in just about two hours, to Park City, Utah, with my suitemates. We\u0026rsquo;re going to do some skiing (snowboarding for me), and some hardcore lounging about. In keeping with that latter spirit, we\u0026rsquo;ll be driving to Orange County for the second half of next week; may sun and good times prevail! But since I felt it was a bit mean to have all that fun without even saying anything at all about Thailand, I thought I would leave you with this word: Elephants are large beasts! It\u0026rsquo;s true. I didn\u0026rsquo;t see very many bigger beasts in Thailand except for, obviously, larger elephants than the ones to which I referred in the last sentence. And the sky, if you count that as a beast. Also, I don\u0026rsquo;t know what my friends were talking about (see previous post), but I didn\u0026rsquo;t see any hookers at all. Just in case you were worried that I might be led astray into wantonness. And by saying I didn\u0026rsquo;t see any, that is not to imply that the not seeing was the failed result of a looking for. There was no looking for either! Oh well, I should stop talking about hookers, none of which I saw, wanted to see (qua hooker of course; qua human I would want to see them just as I would any other person. Hookers are people too!), or tried to see. And now, the end.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Elephants Are Large Beasts"},{"content":"By \u0026ldquo;rest\u0026rdquo;, of course, I mean \u0026ldquo;non-awesomeness\u0026rdquo;. I knew I couldn\u0026rsquo;t make it through a quarter without going on some crazy trip, but apparently Tahoe and Joshua Tree weren\u0026rsquo;t enough.\nThe Sunnybrook house\nLast weekend I went home to say goodbye to our house (above), which we\u0026rsquo;ve lived in for almost exactly 4 years. On the way there from San Jose I passed through San Luis Obispo, CA, Los Angeles, CA, and Chicago, IL, for a total of 15 hours in airports and 9 on planes. At least the horrible travel experience wasn\u0026rsquo;t a complete waste: I wrote this awesome paper, a 20-page term paper for a philosophy of mind class, which I\u0026rsquo;m afraid will be ripped to shreds by my professor despite its inherent awesomeness. The highlight of the Orlando trip was not being stuck on planes, obviously, but sitting in the hot tub for hours 3 nights in a row. Goodbye, sweet hot tub!\nAnd then,\nMe on a traverse in Castle Rock. Dav is cameraman\nMy family came to California to visit our new apartment in San Francisco (where my dad will stay the weeks he is working out here), and so I had to take David bouldering at Castle Rock. Fun times, but unfortunately for me at no point during this great week did I get either of my other two term papers done. And now, I am packing for Thailand, a country I will be leaving for in just about 12 hours\u0026rsquo; time. I am going because I figured I should take off finals week, I wanted some more airline miles, and I\u0026rsquo;ve never been. I have never been to Thailand, but in the past few weeks there have been plenty of people who were willing to give me their opinions of the it: the food is great, the beaches are great, the climbing is great, and the hookers are great\u0026hellip;Incidentally, I learned that the area of Thailand I will be visiting supposedly has some of the greatest sex-per-dollar ratios anywhere. But that\u0026rsquo;s neither here nor there, since I\u0026rsquo;m not typically into visiting brothels, you know.\nBut that\u0026rsquo;s not the end of it! Like my life is some non-stop action movie of sweetness, after I fly back into California from Thailand next Friday, I pack up some warmer clothes and drive to Utah with my roommates, for half a week of snowboarding. When we get burned out on the slopes we\u0026rsquo;ll drive to SoCal for some beach relaxation and a stay at Dan\u0026rsquo;s place.\nSomewhere admidst all that awesomeness, I\u0026rsquo;ve got to cough up some more term papers. But I\u0026rsquo;m losing motivation fast, which means things will probably go quickly (since the less motivation I have, the less I care how well my papers are written).\nIn any case, this will probably be my last transmission from Jonathanland until Spring quarter rolls around and I\u0026rsquo;m back at classes for what may be the last time of my life. Until then, sweet dreams and send money to my PayPal account. Key term for this entry: \u0026ldquo;awesomeness\u0026rdquo;.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/03/no-rest-for-the-weary/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eBy \u0026ldquo;rest\u0026rdquo;, of course, I mean \u0026ldquo;non-awesomeness\u0026rdquo;. I knew I couldn\u0026rsquo;t make it through a quarter without going on some crazy trip, but apparently Tahoe and Joshua Tree weren\u0026rsquo;t enough.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/weblog/photos/sunnybrook.jpg\"\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/weblog/photos/sunnybrook_small.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Sunnybrook house\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLast weekend I went home to say goodbye to our house (above), which we\u0026rsquo;ve lived in for almost exactly 4 years. On the way there from San Jose I passed through San Luis Obispo, CA, Los Angeles, CA, and Chicago, IL, for a total of 15 hours in airports and 9 on planes. At least the horrible travel experience wasn\u0026rsquo;t a complete waste: I wrote \u003ca href=\"http://www.jonathanlipps.com/writings/nouvelle_ai.pdf\"\u003ethis awesome paper\u003c/a\u003e, a 20-page term paper for a philosophy of mind class, which I\u0026rsquo;m afraid will be ripped to shreds by my professor despite its inherent awesomeness. The highlight of the Orlando trip was not being stuck on planes, obviously, but sitting in the hot tub for hours 3 nights in a row. Goodbye, sweet hot tub!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"No Rest for the Weary"},{"content":"It is my opinion that movies have become, as a matter of fact and whether we like it or not, the premier storytelling vehicle of our time. This is not to say that books or music cannot convey stories compellingly\u0026ndash;indeed, my favorite book, Tolkien\u0026rsquo;s Silmarillion, and the songs of my favorite band, Pedro the Lion, are good counterexamples to such a claim\u0026ndash;only that the ubiquity of film (whether or not such ubiquity exists only because it is self-reinforced) and the immediacy of the transition from screen to mind tend to vault it (film) to the forefront of storytelling devices. Therefore, as my friend Phil [entry closest to this date] intimates, it\u0026rsquo;s about time someone got around to making a movie that effectively tells the story of the Christ.\nI saw the film on Monday, at a pre-showing. Technically, it was flawless. From beginning to end I was completely enveloped in the world of first-century Jerusalem, owing not just to the more common excellences Gibson exhibited (cinematography, effects, music, etc\u0026hellip;), but also importantly to the linguistic environment. While the dialect of Aramaic developed for the film was necessarily only a scholar\u0026rsquo;s imitation of language we have only hints about, through modern Aramaic, I was completely sold on the fantastic realism of it. What a pure joy it was for me to hear the flow of the words, closing my eyes and imagining that some very similar audio streams were actually sent through the air and echoed off stone walls thousands of years ago. The Latin spoken by the Romans in the film was likewise a treat\u0026ndash;spoken quickly and lively by the soldiers without the pomp of oration, it made me believe that it actually used to be the lingua franca of the world, not just something my classics professors made up.\nThe technical merits of the film were necessary conditions for its being great (not, of course, sufficient). What they did, essentially, was to free my critical mind from accusations of poor acting (not a hint of which ever appeared onscreen), or poor dialogue (which I would not have been able to understand in any case), so that I could pay attention to the story. And what I realized was that I had, for all the hundreds of times I\u0026rsquo;ve read the gospels, never heard that particular story before. Something like that is the only explanation, anyway, of how I could spend the bulk of the movie shaking and unsuccessfully choking back tears. The viscerality of the torture unmanned me and left me wide open, so that every last bit of sadness I saw in the film, or of beauty, or of symbolism, or of meaningfulness, or of pain, passed right through the usual barriers of intellectualism, or of decorum, or of self-consciousness, or of distraction, and rent my heart; there was nothing that could stop it, not even the embarrassment of crying in a movie theater (an embarrassment made more or less null since everyone seemed to be suffering it at one point or another).\nTears were not the only thing to be inspired unbidden\u0026ndash;there was anger (never at the Jews, or even the Romans who executed the tortures, but more globally at the character of Lucifer and his damned actions that traced back all the way to his serpenting in the Garden, as well as at the evils of human nature that we alone seem to be responsible for) and also a sense of awe as all the things I\u0026rsquo;d ever heard about Jesus\u0026rsquo; experience were realized on the screen. Most importantly, I was drawn to the character of Jesus in a way that I never have been before. For the first time, I looked at him and thought, \u0026quot; That\u0026rsquo;s how I want to be.\u0026quot; Sure, Christians say shit all the time about \u0026ldquo;being like Christ\u0026rdquo; or even how that is the goal of Christianity, but it was never compelling in more than a general way. To me, \u0026ldquo;being like Christ\u0026rdquo; was just equivalent to \u0026ldquo;being good\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;being like a perfect being\u0026rdquo;, and I have an awful hard time caring about being morally perfect. I suppose I never understood that, while \u0026ldquo;Christ\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;perfect being\u0026rdquo; might have the same semantic extension, their intensions are separated by an immense chasm. A chasm out of which somehow sprang the personhood of Jesus, to which I was drawn. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t, in seeing his skin flayed and his blood spilt, attracted to the perfectness of Christ. What perfectness there was was covered under ochre. But the blood and death\u0026ndash;I can understand that because it is all around us, and if ever there was a man who embraced it like Jesus did in this film, that is a man I would follow.\nSo there is an account of what the film did for (rather, to) me\u0026ndash;it compelled me to come to grips of a sort with what kind of person Jesus must have been like to do what he did, and I found, to my surprise, that I loved that person, so full of love himself, and purpose, awareness of cosmological tension and the power to relieve it. In other words, everything that a human is meant to be.\nI have been trying to decide what I would have thought of the movie had I not already considered myself a follower of Christ, and it is difficult. Certainly, if one goes into the movie with an agenda of any kind (whether Christian [say, to be inspired or something useless like that], or otherwise [say, to tally up the possible anti-semitic sentiments]), one will miss the intended impact of the film. If one watches it, on the other hand, as one would watch any other story which she\u0026rsquo;s never seen before (recall your first viewing of Braveheart), it seems to me that the attraction of Christ is inescapable. This attraction, again, is not to any belief about the metaphysical structure of reality, or to any set of mysterious creeds, but to a person. Ultimately, that fact is what sets this film apart from all other Christian attempts at filmmaking, since it is the story of a human being\u0026ndash;a story that can teach us about love, and perhaps even more about love than any other story\u0026ndash;instead of a thinly-veiled excuse to moralize or evangelize.\nIn other words, get off your ass and go see it.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/02/the-passion-of-the-christ/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIt is my opinion that movies have become, as a matter of fact and whether we like it or not, the premier storytelling vehicle of our time. This is not to say that books or music cannot convey stories compellingly\u0026ndash;indeed, my favorite book, Tolkien\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003eSilmarillion\u003c/em\u003e, and the songs of my favorite band, Pedro the Lion, are good counterexamples to such a claim\u0026ndash;only that the ubiquity of film (whether or not such ubiquity exists only because it is self-reinforced) and the immediacy of the transition from screen to mind tend to vault it (film) to the forefront of storytelling devices. Therefore, as my friend \u003ca href=\"http://thissideofglory.blogspot.com/\"\u003ePhil\u003c/a\u003e [entry closest to this date] intimates, it\u0026rsquo;s about time someone got around to making a movie that effectively tells the story of the Christ.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The Passion of the Christ"},{"content":"My trip to Joshua Tree this past weekend ended up being a legitimate adventure, replete with traveling, beautiful scenery, good companionship, physical and emotional hardship, and fight-for-your-life experiences! I thought I would chronicle it here (with pictures!), partly for your entertainment, partly for my own informatic scrapbook purposes, and partly as a record of God\u0026rsquo;s goodness in keeping me alive. Pictures, as usual, will be linked in brackets.\nAt 6 AM last Friday morning, Dan and I woke up ready for the 8 hour drive to Joshua Tree. We were hoping that the odd start time would allow us to avoid much of the weekend traffic in the city areas and getting into Joshua Tree itself (we also wanted to score a decent campsite in the park, and those are preciously hard to come by on a Friday night). There were no incidents on the way there, and we made pretty good time, despite numerous stops, at Carl\u0026rsquo;s Jr for lunch, WalMart for the requisite 2 gallons of water per person for the weekend (there\u0026rsquo;s no drinkable water in Joshua Tree, or any water at all, really), and the Five-Ten outlet in Redlands for some sweet deals on rock shoes (I got some brand new Huecos). We got to the park, situated at about 5,000 vertical feet amidst the Mojave desert, just before sunset. As luck would have it, we were able to find a smallish campsite in Hidden Valley, the most sought-after campground in the park, so we set up the 2-man tent Dan had brought and settled in.\nBefore it got too dark, we took a short walk to Saturday Night Live, a classic JTree V3 boulder problem. I worked on it some but wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite able to send the scary dyno. Meanwhile I got a pretty sweet picture of Ryan Mtn in the glow of the setting sun. [ Awesome Friday Night Sunset] Night came (along with the freezing temperatures of a desert in winter), so we headed back to the campsite and fired up our camp stoves for some dinner and hot chocolate. Then it was early to bed; we wanted a good night\u0026rsquo;s rest to be prepared for the routes we were to climb the next day. I slept pretty well, bundled in many layers of clothing and my sleeping bag (which is supposedly rated down to 20 degrees).\nWe were up fairly early on Saturday, and made some good old oatmeal for breakfast. [ Me cooking oatmeal on my camp stove] Then we headed out to Ryan Mtn (same as in the previous sunset picture) in order to climb Walk on the Wild Side, a sketchy, slabby, run-out, 3-pitch 5.8. It was a bit of a hike there, and the base belay point was a bit awkward, so it took us a while to get all our gear sorted out and ready to go. Eventually, Dan was ready and started the lead up the first pitch. It was a fairly hairy experience, and even though it was technically not too difficult, the climb was balancey and run-out, so one slip of the foot would send Dan falling 40 feet (though hopefully not all the way down). [ Dan 2/3 of the way to the anchor point] He made it without falling of course, set up the belay from the first-pitch anchor, and I followed him. At some points I was pretty scared, because my strength is generally in power and not tricky technique, and also because I was climbing with a pack full of my rope, but 30 or 45 minutes later Dan and I were both dangling 120ft up from the belay, tied into an anchor. At that point we decided, since it was after lunch time, not to do the next two pitches, and so we rappelled down, got our gear together, and went back to the campsite for lunch. [ View from the belay]\nOur next project was to be a climb called Mental Physics, a super-long single-pitch 5.7+. This is a beautiful climb with a bit of everything\u0026ndash;face climbing, crack climbing with fist jams and hand/foot jams, slab climbing, bomber trad placements and an amazing view at the top. Mental Physics is located in an area of the park called the Wonderland of Rocks, which exhibits so many geological oddities I\u0026rsquo;m not sure scientists have figured it out quite yet. If you were to picture giant babies playing with millions of boulders and just dropping them on the ground to form valleys and mazes, you might come close to picturing this location. Anyhow, the hike to Mental Physics didn\u0026rsquo;t follow a proper trail, but wound its way through these valleys and mazes of boulders\u0026ndash;pure 4th class scrambling interspersed with cacti, basically. I was very glad to have some good and sticky trail shoes, because jumping from boulder to boulder would have been next to impossible without them.\nAnyhow, we made it to the climb late afternoon and I set up the belay while Dan got out his trad gear (nuts, hexes, cams, and the like). [ Picture of the climb while getting ready (the end of the crack is actually only about 2/3 of the way up)] Dan did an admirable job up the climb, placing gear every 6 to 10 feet, and eventually made it to the top. [ Dan a ways up] At this point I could tell we needed to hurry a bit, since shadows were starting to work their way up the face as the sun was setting. So I tied in and started to work my way up the crack, taking Dan\u0026rsquo;s gear out and clipping it to my harness as I went along. With the length of the climb, however, and the trickiness of some of the segments, it probably took me a good 40 minutes to get to the summit, just in time to see the sun set behind the canyons of boulders.\nWe were starting to worry a bit, with the sun going down, and it getting a little colder, so we tied our ropes together and made to rappel down. Unfortunately, the ropes got tangled on a ledge 1/3 of the way down, and so we couldn\u0026rsquo;t continue the rappel (you might get stuck indefinitely if the ropes get caught). Moreover, it had become too dark to see the bottom clearly, which is a necessity for a safe rappel. Finally, the seriousness of the situation hit us: we were stuck 200ft off the ground, looking at a night on a rock completely exposed to the wind and cold (I think I already mentioned that temperatures drop below freezing at night in February) with only one long-sleeved layer apiece, and our water down at the belay. Of course, neither of us had kept our headlamps on us; if we had, we probably could have rappelled down still, or made easier the ordeal that followed.\nIt was then that the epic adventure truly began. Luckily (providentially), Dan recalled that there was a walk-down from the summit. Now, \u0026ldquo;walk-down\u0026rdquo; usually means an easy, no-climbing-required descent, but the route we eventually clambered down was anything but easy. Not only was it extremely steep and did it involve trusting holds which we couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell were safe, we soon realized that, without a moon, it was really dark. That\u0026rsquo;s right\u0026ndash;new moon = no light. Anywhere else, for example sitting at a campsite, we might have been glad for the chance to see the stars that much clearer, but then I was just realizing that the stars are really only good for seeing, not for seeing by. Well, miraculously, we made it down to the other side of the mountain without accident, and took stock of our situation.\nThings stood something like this: first, we were at least 45 minutes to an hour from our car if we followed the quickest and safest route back. Unfortunately, and as I noted before, there was no established \u0026ldquo;route\u0026rdquo;, so our chances of stumbling blindly back on the path we had made on the way there were close to nil. We had a general idea of which direction we needed to head, but since just about all the landmarks looked the same, we weren\u0026rsquo;t all that likely to actually find anything which could tell us if we were close to getting home or not. Second, we had no food or water, and had just got done with a longish climb. Third, we were weighed down with quite a few pounds of gear, and no easy way to carry it\u0026ndash;we had all sorts of trad gear and quickdraws and such clipped to our harnesses, and had fashioned a self-carrying backpack out of each of our ropes. I hesitate to estimate, but all this could have weighed between 20 and 30 pounds. Fourth, the only footwear we had was our climbing shoes. Climbing shoes, of course, are not made for walking or hiking of any kind, as they are meant to contort the foot into an odd, tense shape which is beneficial for the technical moves required on the rock. Moreover, I was wearing the new Huecos I had bought, and one generally buys rock shoes a bit small, knowing that over the course of the next few weeks they will expand gradually to the desired size. Needless to say, my feet had already been in complete pain during the climb for solely this reason. Fifth, we were not prepared for cold weather at all, since we each had just one long-sleeved layer of clothing with which to face freezing temperatures. Sixth and finally, we had no light to see by, since we had foolishly left our headlamps in the car, and since the moon had decided to play hooky that evening.\nRealizing all this, we had two options: we could either try to make it back to our car, taking our chances with the terrain and our senses of direction, or we could find a good place in which to huddle together and pass the night, hopefully not contracting hypothermia or the like. After deliberating we opted for the first choice, since we reasoned that at least moving over the difficult terrain would keep us from being cold and that, however long it took us, we would more than likely hit one of the park\u0026rsquo;s roads eventually, which we could follow back to our car. Then we had another decision to make: whether or not to try to find the base of the climb we had done, in order to retrieve all the gear we had left there. The positive results of such an endeavor would be that (a) we could put on our trail shoes and free ourselves of a good deal of pain hiking in climbing shoes, and (b) we could consolidate all our equipment into packs, which would be safer and more comfortable. Ultimately, however we decided that such benefits would not be worth the danger of both possibly wasting time and energy in a search that would be very difficult (since no features could be made out on the rock, so we would not know which segment of the mountain held our belay station), and injuring ourselves (since the scramble up to the belay had taken the utmost of care and concentration even in full daylight).\nDecision made, we took our bearings via the constellations (and the trusty north star), and decided that a south-easterly course was best. We worked our way through the valleys as best we could, since the going was less dangerous there, but all the same it was by no means trivial. To emphasize how dark it was, I will say that it would have been impossible to see Dan, even when he was only 10 feet in front of me, had I not been looking out of the corner of my eye (where light sensitivity is greater) and had he not been wearing a glossy white helmet. This, combined with the necessity of climbing up and jumping/sliding down boulders, made for some very interesting leaps of faith as we at times committed ourselves to a downward slide on a boulder, hoping that the ground, or another boulder, would stop us soon. To make this matter worse, what we could make out in the night appeared to us at deceptive distances. A fall that looked like a manageable 3 feet would turn out to be 4, and my stomach would lurch for that last foot as I wondered if I had miscalculated even more. Or, what looked like a differently-colored patch of rock would turn out to be a shadow caused by a change in elevation, with obvious and painful consequences.\nAfter about an hour of picking our way through one boulder-strewn valley, it became clear that it was turning us too far to the north, and that we would have to crest the hill to our right. This turned out to be far more difficult than anticipated, and during the climb (and increasingly thereafter) I became glad that I was wearing climbing shoes. Despite the constant pain in my feet (which I was sure would be permanently damaged), the shoes provided an extra level of safety on the rocks, which was an incredible boon given the dangerous scrambling and the layer of grit on the boulders which made traction hard to come by. Curiously, this grit appeared to be made of quartz and something else, because every time our shoes would slide against it at any decent pressure, we would see faint flashes of luminescence. Another annoying hindrance was the vegetation which was scattered throughout the boulders. Every scraggly dead plant seemed bent on snagging my rope or my gear, making my rope a tangled mess, and I could never tell whether that patch of desert flora in front of me was an innocuous shrub or a cactus. Moreover, sometimes, as I was sliding down a boulder or something similar, one of Dan\u0026rsquo;s hexes would get stuck in a crack in the boulder (just as it was designed to do, in fact), leaving me caught on the middle of the small slope while I tried to work the piece of gear free.\nOn the other hand, these distractions proved to be useful for exactly that\u0026ndash;distracting me from the fact that I was wandering around at night in the desert with no water and, basically, working out. It would not have been good, I wager, for me to start thinking about being thirsty or about what being dehydrated feels like.\nAt any rate we made it to the top of this particular valley of rocks, and caught a glimpse of the only real landmark; a nasty pond of sorts which had seemed quite out of place in the desert on our way to Mental Physics now glimmered enticingly far beneath us, a breath of fresh air to our despairing bodies. With renewed energy we scrambled down the other side of the ridge into this new valley, and tried to guess where exactly we were on the circumference of the pond, eventually deciding we must be somewhere on the north-east. We remembered that there was one and only one fording place that would allow us to get from the north side of the pond to the south, and thereby to a trail we knew had to be over there. But a while spent searching the edges of the pond didn\u0026rsquo;t reveal any such ford to us, and after Dan stepped right into the curiously boggy pond thinking it was solid ground, we decided the search was fruitless and resolved to head east into another valley (we couldn\u0026rsquo;t just skirt the lake because of the sheer walls to the south).\nHeartened that we were not going in completely the wrong direction, we entered the physically most challenging portion of the journey, as this particular wash seemed to have decidedly nasty boulders. After dragging ourselves a ways along it, it seemed to us that the ridge to the south was especially low, and that we might be able to climb up to it and take a survey of the surrounding land, to see if there were any car headlights that would alert us to the direction of a road. That decision turned out to be bad, since after some fairly technical scrambling, we were faced with a featureless slab climb to the top. I was too scared by it to attempt the climb, but Dan gave it a shot. He got about half way up when it became clear that it was too steep and too gritty for him to get safely to the top, or back down if he did (down-climbing, especially on slab, is always harder than the climb up). From there it was a risky bail for Dan, and he made his way back down as I prayed silently.\nSince we had no real choice but to continue on in the direction we had been going, we managed our way back to the valley floor and pushed east, keeping our eyes open for another opportunity to move south over the ridge. Eventually we were forced to try this, whether we wanted or not, since the wash we had been following came to an end. Surprisingly, even though the ridge was higher here, it proved to be easier to feel a way up to the top than in our previous attempt. Dan made it up first, and said he was fairly sure he had seen some headlights far off, over another ridge. By the time I got up they were gone, however, and all I could see were dark walls of rock all around. At this point I was probably the most hopeless I had been all night, since, by our calculations, once we had crested this ridge, we would be looking into the valley where we would have been walking had we made it around the pond in the way we wanted. And that, of course, was supposed to contain a path which led out of the wonderland of rocks, through a brief section of open desert, and to the parking lot. More importantly, in the direction of the parking lot there was only desert\u0026ndash;no rock formations. But as I looked around from my vantage point on the hill, it was just, I thought, valley wall after valley wall on all sides. So we must not have been, we thought, where we thought we were.\nWe went down into this new wash anyhow, though the going was difficult, because we knew (or hoped) that at some point if we went that direction we would run into the open desert, and that would be a good sight better than the damn wonderland of rocks. To our surprise and great delight, however, as soon as we were all the way down, we ran right into a trail! And not just any trail, but a real trail, made by the good folks at Joshua Tree National Park. We knew this because we saw one of those informational posts that tell you about desert life and whatnot. Ironically, when we read it by the light of Dan\u0026rsquo;s watch, it was about \u0026ldquo;water in the desert\u0026rdquo;. Yes, we know it\u0026rsquo;s hard to come by. Thanks.\nOur spirits rose even higher as the trail we were on intersected an even larger trail going south; this one even had posts that delineated the sides of the trail. At this point we knew we were saved, because trails this good are only by parking lots. Minutes later (it seemed like bare seconds), our feet hit pavement, and we found ourselves in a parking lot. In fact, the very parking lot where Dan\u0026rsquo;s car was parked! So then, as I looked around, I realized that what I had taken, on the last ridge, to be a close-by rock formation blocking the way to the parking lot was actually Ryan Mtn, at least a mile off and distanced by the very open desert I had hoped to see, and would have seen, had not the darkness made all silhouettes appear at similar depths.\nAs soon as we stopped, weariness, thirst, pain, and cold all seemed to crash down at once. I was shivering uncontrollably, and couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand why I had not once felt cold during the ordeal. The first thing we did after making sure the car was indeed Dan\u0026rsquo;s was to offer up a prayer of thanks to God, whom we had been supplicating all along. Truly, it was near-miraculous, if not actually-miraculous, that neither of us was injured or hurt, despite the hundreds of opportunities for it. More astounding to us was the pathfinding sense which we felt we had been especially given, as it turns out we worked our way in more or less a straight line from the climb to the car (though this was not, unfortunately, the easiest way). Finally, we looked at our watches and learned that it had been over 3 hours since we first started down the back of Lenticular Rock (which Mental Physics was on). That\u0026rsquo;s 3 hours without a stop, a breather, or a mouthful of water. And somehow our bodies managed to perform at the high level we required. In sum, all the things we said or thought during that time could be divided into two groups: curses and prayers. I remember one plant in particular that seemed to be hell-bent on getting all my gear tangled in its thorns, and how I gave it such a verbal stream of four-letter words that I thought it should wither right there on the spot. It didn\u0026rsquo;t. The point is, of the two, it seems that the prayers were actually effective, and Dan and I were both overwhelmed with a feeling of being intentionally guided and spared.\nFrom there we drove straight into town in search of food to ease our exhaustion. We passed by a Thai restaurant that had just closed, but I spoke with the proprietor, and they gladly let us eat all their leftovers for a nominal fee. It tasted amazing. We also ordered a round of Singha beer for a toast to our survival. At that point I was tempted to proclaim it the best beer I had ever tasted; that\u0026rsquo;s how giddy I was at being happily seated at a warm restaurant, alive. To finish the night, I received an entirely appropriate fortune in my fortune cookie, which, if we had followed its instructions, we would have been spared all our trouble. It read, \u0026ldquo;What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.\u0026rdquo; Clearly, we were fools to start that climb at the end of the day.\nAnd so, Dan and I celebrated Valentine\u0026rsquo;s Day without so much as a lament over our singleness, which was, as I look back, quite a relief.\nWe went back to camp then and slept until dawn, when we woke up, put on our running shoes (still no trail shoes, remember), and drove back to the wonderland of rocks for the hike to Lenticular Rock. As we progressed on our way there, we recognized some of the places we had felt our way through the night before, and realized where exactly we took the harder routes. At one point, we were a mere 10 feet from the ford we were looking for to cross the pond. I also took a few pictures of some of the terrain we had walked blindly through. [ This one] is a general picture of the wonderland of rocks area, actually taken from Lenticular Rock, and [ this one] is a picture of the final ridge we worked our way down just before we stumbled onto the real trail. Well, we successfully retrieved our packs and shoes from the belay station, and went back to the car, even more freaked out about the night before, now that we had seen all the places we could have fallen and broken a leg, etc\u0026hellip;\nWe thought about setting up and working on another big climb or two, but we were both feeling a little exhausted and not a little gun-shy, so instead we spent the remainder of the morning doing some bouldering. [ Here] is a picture of a fun boulder near Cap Rock. Bouldering soon lost its appeal, though, since our hands had been rubbed completely raw during our scrambling the night before, so we headed back to the campsite for a chill afternoon of reading and sunning (the middle of the day was actually quite nice). I took a neat panorama shot of Hidden Valley, where our campground was located, from the top of a nearby rock. [ Panorama\u0026ndash;our tent is hidden in the left 1/4]\nAfter that, our trip was pretty much over, since I was scheduled to leave early the next morning with Dan\u0026rsquo;s car and drive back to Stanford, while Dan stayed on another day and climbed with a friend from Orange County. I did, however, catch a cool sunset on our way to get some pizza for dinner (at Sam\u0026rsquo;s Pizza and Indian Food, if you can believe that). [ Sunset 1] and [ Sunset 2]\nI woke up the next morning at 5 AM in order to beat the holiday traffic and took Dan\u0026rsquo;s green Civic, armed with what I hoped were good memories of directions, CDs, water, and trail mix. And those were, in fact, my constant companions on the drive home, which I made in a record 6.5 hours (that\u0026rsquo;s 500 miles!). Yes, that is an average speed of 77 MPH. I love I-5. And thus ended my weekend adventures, unless you want to hear how bad I smelled after not showering for over 3 days, and after wearing the exact same clothes every day (even after our ordeal). In case you also wanted to know about that, I wore my awesome CoolMax shirt from Target, on top of which I added a really stylish Pedro shirt my brother made for me (worn, in fact, in his memory, since that studly climber is stuck in Florida and couldn\u0026rsquo;t make it to Joshua Tree).\nNeedless to say, I have increased the level of respect I plan to have for outdoor activites and Nature in general, and will therefore do my best to never again get stuck in Joshua Tree at night in the winter with no water and no light. Finally, know that my camp stove is awesome.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/02/joshua-tree/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eMy trip to Joshua Tree this past weekend ended up being a legitimate adventure, replete with traveling, beautiful scenery, good companionship, physical and emotional hardship, and fight-for-your-life experiences! I thought I would chronicle it here (with pictures!), partly for your entertainment, partly for my own informatic scrapbook purposes, and partly as a record of God\u0026rsquo;s goodness in keeping me alive. Pictures, as usual, will be linked in brackets.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt 6 AM last Friday morning, Dan and I woke up ready for the 8 hour drive to Joshua Tree. We were hoping that the odd start time would allow us to avoid much of the weekend traffic in the city areas and getting into Joshua Tree itself (we also wanted to score a decent campsite in the park, and those are preciously hard to come by on a Friday night). There were no incidents on the way there, and we made pretty good time, despite numerous stops, at Carl\u0026rsquo;s Jr for lunch, WalMart for the requisite 2 gallons of water per person for the weekend (there\u0026rsquo;s no drinkable water in Joshua Tree, or any water at all, really), and the Five-Ten outlet in Redlands for some sweet deals on rock shoes (I got some brand new \u003ca href=\"http://www.fiveten.com/products/index.php?action=item\u0026amp;id=16\"\u003eHuecos\u003c/a\u003e). We got to the park, situated at about 5,000 vertical feet amidst the Mojave desert, just before sunset. As luck would have it, we were able to find a smallish campsite in Hidden Valley, the most sought-after campground in the park, so we set up the 2-man tent Dan had brought and settled in.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Joshua Tree"},{"content":"Intense Self-Reflection\u0026ndash;that would be a good way to describe the past week or so of my life. At least, these days have been intense, and they have been self-reflective (more properly, I have been self-reflective in them), if not intense ly self-reflective. In any case, it\u0026rsquo;s all part and parcel of the fact that this senior year of college, whether by my will or not, is forcing me to discover my identity\u0026ndash;who I am, and why I do the things I do. Remarkably, given my propensity towards self-analysis, I think the core of who I am has remained largely opaque, not just to others, but to myself. In fact, the ever-running inner monologue (more accurately, inner debate) has served to obscure the reason for it\u0026ndash;the substratum on which it rides. Perhaps more importantly, it has come to light that I am actually the opposite of who I am, which, as you\u0026rsquo;d imagine, will fool any but the most careful of self-analyses.\nBefore I give some examples to flesh out exactly how I have been \u0026ldquo;self-reflective\u0026rdquo;, it is worth guessing at why I have been driven to it specifically in the last few weeks. I think, ultimately, the answer is that I am lonely. Of course, there are many different kinds of loneliness and I\u0026rsquo;m not sure which it is I am experiencing. It\u0026rsquo;s sort of a longing strangely mixed with an ennuiish hopelessness, as if I were this world, wishing to be full of magic and adventure but knowing that all that ever happens is cause and effect\u0026ndash;law-driven necessities not admitting of departure from the norm\u0026ndash;atoms interacting and explaining everything: structure without substance. It is difficult, however, to always be precise about these things, because whatever form of loneliness I am actually experiencing, the end result is that I want a girlfriend, and that move tends to radiate too much noise for the undertaking of a profitable metaphysical inquisition. Anyhow, what connects this loneliness to self-reflectivity is that there seems to be no outstanding reason for it, and so I am driven to look inside and figure out whence it comes.\nSo, one thing I have done, as an initial foray, is to lay some of the groundwork for my biography. That is, I have spent some time trying to remember every event of significance in my life, since my earliest memories around age 3. The first observation I made was how quickly certain pictures and events come to mind, though I have not thought of them in 10 or 15 years. The second was how different everything looked (in terms of significance) from my current perspective. In other words, some things which, at the time, I may not have thought were key moments in my life, I now realize had a substantial impact on my life, or set the stage for future choices, or initiated characteristic patterns (of personality or whatever) which I still exhibit today. At this point, I have gotten through most of junior high in my list-making, and so I am expecting even more surprises as I get into high school and beyond. The benefit of this exercise (and I use the term \u0026ldquo;biography\u0026rdquo; very loosely, of course) is that I get more of a sense of direction for my life\u0026ndash;not for the future, necessarily, but the direction it has gone. And that, obviously, helps me to understand why exactly it is that I am here, now, and experiencing the things I am.\nAs a result of that project, and also some other, less \u0026ldquo;scientific\u0026rdquo;, realizations that have come to me recently, I have learned more about (1) the core of my being\u0026ndash;what pushes me from day to day and causes me to like certain things and not others, judge some things of more value than others, and so on, (2) my patterns of interaction with people of various kinds, and why they are such that they are, (3) what a woman will have to be like if there is to be any chance of me loving her forever, and (4) what I see as my biggest insecurities and flaws. Since all of these lessons are still more or less in progress, I\u0026rsquo;m not going to share any details at this point, but I hope that, if I continue to unravel these mysteries at the current rate, I\u0026rsquo;ll have things figured out before Christmas. Of course, that\u0026rsquo;s optimistic and it won\u0026rsquo;t happen, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to be honest and just say, \u0026ldquo;Too bad, I\u0026rsquo;m not telling.\u0026rdquo;\nAnother great opportunity I had was to go on a snowboarding trip to Lake Tahoe, all by myself, this weekend. Originally, I had been planning on going with some friends, but, in the end, no one else could go, so I decided to make use of the weekend, and my snowboard, anyways. I love road trips partly for the reason that, somehow, driving puts me in a pensive mood, and I am able to come to interesting conclusions about things spontaneously. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if that happened on this particular trip, but I did gather my thoughts from the previous weeks into something of a coherent whole, and I think that as a result I am ready to move into the next stage of \u0026ldquo;self-discovery\u0026rdquo; (taken in the literal sense). On top of that, the snow was awesome\u0026ndash;a good deal of fresh powder was there on Saturday morning for me to make tracks in, and I felt that my snowboarding skills improved greatly, as my carving got tighter and I was more willing to pick up speed and trust that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t eat it. Another unexpected benefit of being on the mountain alone was that I could go in the singles line at the lifts, saving a ton of wait time. I was also able, for that reason, to have a lot of cool conversations with the people on the chair beside me.\nIncidentally, I have a few pictures from the weekend that might be fun to look at: My snowboard and car, Self-picture, View from the top of a run.\nOf course, despite the clarity that solitude brings (and brought), I don\u0026rsquo;t think my solo snowboarding adventure did much to help cure my loneliness. On the other hand, maybe loneliness is exactly what I need at the moment, since it is spurring me to so many useful ponderings. Unfortunately, it looks like I will be running out of time in which to do these ponderings (not that I ever had it to begin with), as the quarter is coming rapidly to a close. It ends all the sooner for me since I am planning on taking finals week off to go to Thailand with my mom. It should be a fun adventure, and maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll get a chance to do some climbing there. The only problem is that I\u0026rsquo;ll have to finish my 3 term papers a whole week early. I\u0026rsquo;m also heading back to Orlando the week before that, to say goodbye to our house, which has been sold! It\u0026rsquo;s a good house, with many great memories attached. In any case, maybe further self-realizations (if important) will fall out of the daily work and school I am doing.\nIn conclusion, I should mention that the subject matter of this entry is fitting, as the entry marks (nearly enough) the 2nd anniversary of my weblog. And the weblog is, of course, primarily a tool of self-discovery through somewhat exhibitionist writing (unless we are in a more noble mood, in which case that description sounds cheap\u0026ndash;but I\u0026rsquo;m prepared to accept it as true without much argument). I\u0026rsquo;d like to think that my weblog has changed as much and in similar ways as I have\u0026ndash;in content (deeper), style (more involved), and appearance (more sexy). Well then, happy blogaversary to me!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/02/solitude/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIntense Self-Reflection\u0026ndash;that would be a good way to describe the past week or so of my life. At least, these days have been intense, and they have been self-reflective (more properly, I have been self-reflective in them), if not intense \u003cem\u003ely\u003c/em\u003e self-reflective. In any case, it\u0026rsquo;s all part and parcel of the fact that this senior year of college, whether by my will or not, is forcing me to discover my identity\u0026ndash;who I am, and why I do the things I do. Remarkably, given my propensity towards self-analysis, I think the \u003cem\u003ecore\u003c/em\u003e of who I am has remained largely opaque, not just to others, but to myself. In fact, the ever-running inner monologue (more accurately, inner debate) has served to obscure the reason for it\u0026ndash;the substratum on which it rides. Perhaps more importantly, it has come to light that I am actually the opposite of who I am, which, as you\u0026rsquo;d imagine, will fool any but the most careful of self-analyses.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Solitude"},{"content":"For those of you who have the audacity to be so egregiously ignorant, I\u0026rsquo;m currently in a band (of sorts) with my brother David. We\u0026rsquo;re called Splendour Hyaline. I sing and play guitars of various kinds and write music, and David writes and plays percussion parts. Anyway, we recorded a new EP (which has a secret working title\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;the EP\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;don\u0026rsquo;t tell anyone!) over Christmas break, and somehow it ended up rocking. I mean, actually rocking. Our last CD, if you remember that, also rocked, but this rocks even more. And so, I prophesy, will it always be\u0026ndash;each CD better than the last, in a continual asymptotic progression towards auditory perfection.\nI, being not only awesome but benevolent (as any good philosopher king is) have decided to put 2 of the 5 songs from this EP online. You can download one here: Arctic Wastelands in the Quest for Character, and the other here: Love is Around. Please listen and enjoy using your choice of fine MP3 players (iPrefer the iTunes).\nIncidentally, there are rumors, not yet to be confused with truths, that I will be spending a good amount of time in Florida next year (that is, after I graduate and leave the Stanford Farm for good). If that does turn out to be the case, Dav and I will no doubt kick it with some more recordings and lots more shows. Hell, maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll even add some folks so I don\u0026rsquo;t have to play 3 guitars and bass at the same time, since that\u0026rsquo;s really hard. In any case, Splendour Hyaline sails on!\nWell, let us know what you think.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/01/round-2/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eFor those of you who have the audacity to be so egregiously ignorant, I\u0026rsquo;m currently in a band (of sorts) with my brother David. We\u0026rsquo;re called Splendour Hyaline. I sing and play guitars of various kinds and write music, and David writes and plays percussion parts. Anyway, we recorded a new EP (which has a secret working title\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;the EP\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;don\u0026rsquo;t tell anyone!) over Christmas break, and somehow it ended up rocking. I mean, actually rocking. Our last CD, if you remember that, also rocked, but this rocks even more. And so, I prophesy, will it always be\u0026ndash;each CD better than the last, in a continual asymptotic progression towards auditory perfection.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Round 2"},{"content":"The title of this weblog entry is \u0026ldquo;K\u0026rdquo;. You might be thinking that this is either (a) for some reason(s), or (b) for no reason, but that\u0026rsquo;s only if you believe in Logic. And who does that nowadays? Actually, it\u0026rsquo;s not that complicated, and I don\u0026rsquo;t recommend thinking about whether or not you should continue to believe in Logic or if Logical Truths are true\u0026ndash;you won\u0026rsquo;t get anywhere interesting, especially if you use arguments (i.e., Logic). The real \u0026ldquo;reason\u0026rdquo; this weblog entry is entitled \u0026ldquo;K\u0026rdquo; is that I don\u0026rsquo;t have any other weblog entry whose title starts with the letter K. Don\u0026rsquo;t ask me how I found this out\u0026ndash;let\u0026rsquo;s just say I know everything.\nIn any case, even though I know everything, something occurred to me (which, of course, isn\u0026rsquo;t possible)\u0026ndash;and what occurred to me is this: how completely and utterly unfair it is that the letter K has no representation in the titles of this weblog. Never mind the English language, which uses the letter K far less freqently than the letters E, T, A, O, N, R, I, S, H, D, L, F, C, M, U, G, Y, P, W, B, and V\u0026ndash;clearly, English is and always has been an Earchical language, full of Eimperialism and Edogmas. Sadly, most of the other letters have fallen in line with this E-centered meta-narrative and resigned themselves to being second-class citizens of the alphabet world. Z is the most pitiful of all\u0026ndash;last not only in frequency, but also in the alphabet song itself (which is to the letter-people very much like the Declaration of Independence is to Americans).\nI, being enlightened as to the plight of these glyphs who have been suffering so long under the thumb of E, so to speak, have always tried to be fair in my use of them. Unfortunately, it is rather hard not to put E up front, since it is so damned useful as a vowel, especially given its glowing history in Scrabble and Wheel of Fortune. But today we recognize this injustice in the literary world, even if we don\u0026rsquo;t do anything about it: today is for K! Today I have given K a voice (even if it is a harsh, back-in-the-throat, sort of voice). What does K say? K says, \u0026ldquo;Krazy Karl\u0026rsquo;s Kaloches are Kookily Kool!\u0026rdquo; Well, there you have it.\nIn reality, I mostly just wanted to move past the last entry (where the number of times I said \u0026ldquo;fuck\u0026rdquo; betrayed the fact [all the other words to the contrary, of course], that I wasn\u0026rsquo;t having a particularly good day). Ironically, not too much has changed, but I am back at Stanford in my second week of the quarter and my philosopher\u0026rsquo;s mind is being given all sorts of things to put together and synthesize in class, if not life. The busy-ness is good, but things are boiling under the surface\u0026ndash;indeed, much has already come to a head that I wish I had time or inclination to write about at the present time. Alas, it is not to be. All the same, the lethargy and paralysis of break have been pushed far from my mind and I am again in a desperate fight for my life, trying to manage 4 classes, 3 part time jobs, a good amount of climbing, running, cycling, hanging out with friends, sleeping, reading, watching movies, writing songs\u0026hellip;\nIncidentally, and I\u0026rsquo;ll close with this, I am going snowboarding this weekend! I have indeed purchased my first snowboard. Actually, my first two snowboards, though I am taking one back for a full refund (it was really expensive and after I bought it I realized I didn\u0026rsquo;t have any money. Hooray credit cards!). In the end, I bought a barely-used one, with bindings, off a guy from su.market, for a third of the price of the other. It is white with a sort of firey Chinese dragon on the bottom. Go figure. Let\u0026rsquo;s just say I\u0026rsquo;m the Dragon of the Slopes, whatever that means (and that\u0026rsquo;s exactly the point. Exactly). I\u0026rsquo;m hoping to go up to Tahoe 4 or 5 times this quarter and get some good use out of the board, before I graduate and there will exist the possibility of never living in California again. Well, here\u0026rsquo;s to stuff and my rampant consumerism, and let\u0026rsquo;s all pray I don\u0026rsquo;t break too many bones this weekend. Or any, for that matter.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2004/01/k/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe title of this weblog entry is \u0026ldquo;K\u0026rdquo;. You might be thinking that this is either (a) for some reason(s), or (b) for no reason, but that\u0026rsquo;s only if you believe in Logic. And who does that nowadays? Actually, it\u0026rsquo;s not that complicated, and I don\u0026rsquo;t recommend thinking about whether or not you should continue to believe in Logic or if Logical Truths are true\u0026ndash;you won\u0026rsquo;t get anywhere interesting, especially if you use arguments (i.e., Logic). The real \u0026ldquo;reason\u0026rdquo; this weblog entry is entitled \u0026ldquo;K\u0026rdquo; is that I don\u0026rsquo;t have any other weblog entry whose title starts with the letter K. Don\u0026rsquo;t ask me how I found this out\u0026ndash;let\u0026rsquo;s just say I know everything.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"K"},{"content":"The Oracle could have been talking to me (actually, she was: remember, I\u0026rsquo;m Neo)\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;I think you\u0026rsquo;re waiting for something\u0026rdquo;. It\u0026rsquo;s true, I\u0026rsquo;ve been waiting for something. You see, recently I\u0026rsquo;ve taken to waiting until my thoughts are something of a unified whole before I move to compose them into a weblog entry. This is all part and parcel of the ideological shift that took place in the move from Blogger to MovableType, when I decided to put childish things behind me. The problem is that, far from unifying, it seems that my thoughts these past weeks have been slowly decomposing, fragmenting and breaking off into little pieces of Mentalese that fall into the sink and down the drain while I\u0026rsquo;m cleaning dishes. Every so often I try to master a few streams and get them into some coherent form, but I\u0026rsquo;m too weak.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t help that the flood of events has mirrored this pattern: every now and again something will happen, but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have any relationship to anything else that\u0026rsquo;s happening, and then I go to sleep, only to wake up to something even more unrelated, like a dream about wizards who turn into animals and the realization that I\u0026rsquo;m sleeping beneath some very odd peach-and-burgundy floral-print comforter and matching sheets. Why are they on my bed? Who knows; it\u0026rsquo;s how it was when I got home and I\u0026rsquo;m too lazy to change them.\nOr my good friend will come over and we\u0026rsquo;ll hang out and he\u0026rsquo;ll tell me how he\u0026rsquo;s engaged to a girl I\u0026rsquo;ve never met. And I\u0026rsquo;m happy for him and that\u0026rsquo;s worth writing about\u0026ndash;engagements are worth writing about as a unified whole because now 5 close friends are getting married before the summer of 2004 comes to a close (before I\u0026rsquo;ll have even found a job, probably), and i\u0026rsquo;m so incredibly happy for all these people. But then I start feeling a little depressed that I don\u0026rsquo;t even have any prospects, and how I probably won\u0026rsquo;t have any for a long time because I\u0026rsquo;m so self-centered, and I don\u0026rsquo;t really like girls anyway, at least not the right kind, I just like being infatuated with them, and I have no idea what love is. And if I don\u0026rsquo;t have any idea what love is, how can my friends, and they\u0026rsquo;re all headed for disaster (I\u0026rsquo;m actually jealous), and I told you so\u0026hellip;\n\u0026hellip;and I\u0026rsquo;m glad you never listened to me, even if I had actually been so stupid as to say something instead of just think it and then watch it fall out of my head and fall to pieces and wash down the drain and isn\u0026rsquo;t it cool how the drain makes a little water tornado? I hate tornados. Fuck tornados and all that destruction\u0026hellip;and that earthquake in Iran\u0026hellip;fuck that too.\nOr I could have tried to get some unity of thought about Christmas, and write some pompously literate-sounding thing about the Incarnation. If I ever make it sound like I understand how God could be born in a manger in some actual place in our world, or why he would do so just to die for us, please do something hurtful to me. I don\u0026rsquo;t understand it, but it is real, more real than most things I do understand and I need it more than I need closure this afternoon, some semblance of reason, defragmentation\u0026hellip;\nThis year has drawn to a close with a whimper and a sigh, without definition or plan for what will be different next year. No resolutions forthcoming, no energy to take regret and turn it into progress. Just a kernel of praise and thankfulness to God that I am still alive, and a lot of pain. Pain from loneliness and a desire to be with someone, and a desire to be alone, to sit and let rain fall on my head and turn to snow and then melt and then the sun comes out and maybe some branches start growing and ten years later I\u0026rsquo;m a tree. I need to see myself grow somehow\u0026ndash;it might as well be into a tree, since I don\u0026rsquo;t have enough motivation to actually put my sins to death or become a more loving person or stop being addicted to expanding myself instead of Christ in me.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s funny; I never realized I came back from the quarter wounded. Tired, maybe\u0026hellip;lazy, certainly. But wounded\u0026hellip;that would explain the fragmentation, the lackluster way I\u0026rsquo;ve taken in images and events and why I\u0026rsquo;ve been sick with the flu and why I resisted pulling together any thoughts to make a more hopeful weblog entry. But where is the hurt, how deep is it, who did it, and can it be healed? Maybe 2004 holds the answers. Maybe it does. 2003 certainly did not. Odd years are like that, I guess.\nC˙ni en Èdras,\nLaÌren weth th·nod,\n¡po orÈt nov·wer\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/12/years-end/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe Oracle could have been talking to me (actually, she was: remember, I\u0026rsquo;m Neo)\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;I think you\u0026rsquo;re waiting for something\u0026rdquo;. It\u0026rsquo;s true, I\u0026rsquo;ve been waiting for something. You see, recently I\u0026rsquo;ve taken to waiting until my thoughts are something of a unified whole before I move to compose them into a weblog entry. This is all part and parcel of the ideological shift that took place in the move from Blogger to MovableType, when I decided to put childish things behind me. The problem is that, far from unifying, it seems that my thoughts these past weeks have been slowly decomposing, fragmenting and breaking off into little pieces of Mentalese that fall into the sink and down the drain while I\u0026rsquo;m cleaning dishes. Every so often I try to master a few streams and get them into some coherent form, but I\u0026rsquo;m too weak.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Year's End"},{"content":"Occasionally, maybe even most of the time, I seem to forget that I have anything resembling roots. You know, childhood streets, trees that you climbed often enough to have favorite spots in, elementary school friends that you see making out at junior prom: in other words, a history, or the necessary result of being somewhere long enough for something to happen. I suppose my pride at being from so many places all over the states and even overseas has translated into a subconscious averaging-out of my locational story. Though it is true, I don\u0026rsquo;t think of myself as having spent just under half my life in a little Dallas suburb, because how can I let one place overpower all the others?\nBut, and perhaps not regrettably, reality in this case cannot be denied. Or at least, I can\u0026rsquo;t visit the place where I spent my formative (and thus undesirable) years and not feel an incredibly subtle mix of emotions. There is the surprise I mentioned in the previous paragraph, of how familiar everything seems, as if living somewhere for 10 years isn\u0026rsquo;t enough to make things familiar. Then there is the uncontrollable rush of images and stories and names that flood back into my mind, stories I thought I\u0026rsquo;d forgotten and names I\u0026rsquo;m sure I haven\u0026rsquo;t thought in 5 years\u0026ndash;little modules of myself that have always been there but are suddenly noticed again, like little alien homunculi floating around in my mind. There is the unavoidable confrontation between myself as I was when I lived here and myself as I have become (and where did all my in-between selves go?).\nSince we are on the eve of the release of Return of the King, it might be appropriate to draw a bit of an analogy to the hobbits\u0026rsquo; return to the Shire. Just like Hobbiton, it seems that the fires of industry have consumed Cedar Hill. I don\u0026rsquo;t know when it went from being a small Texas town of 10,000 to the capital of Suburbia, with 30,000 inhabitants happily segregated into families with 2.5 kids, a cat and dog, and 1.5 Starbuckses, but some day it must have happened, to the utter surprise and chagrin of all (though I notice a lot of dry eyes, so maybe the town itself was in cahoots with the Big Bosses, conspiring to Barnes \u0026amp; Noblify my memories). Needless to say, the sense of familiarity I talked about is tempered by a jarring sense that something is different, and I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I like it.\nMaybe the moral of this story is, you can always go home (even if you don\u0026rsquo;t realize it is home until you get there), but home is never the same. Towns change, landscapes change, people change\u0026ndash;too many of your high school friends, though they never really left like they needed to, have somehow become the opposite of who you expected. Some are married, some are pregnant, some are off on what seem like permanent trips out of reality. Of course, that\u0026rsquo;s a bit superficial, since I\u0026rsquo;m often not too in touch with reality either, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean I don\u0026rsquo;t have a core people recognize. So it is in this case.\nThese past few days have been a wonderful experience, visiting with family and friends in Dallas and Austin, if only for the very awesome reason that I have completely and perfectly regained a Texas accent. No doubt I will lose it just as completely in a few days, when I continue on to Orlando for the Christmas holidays, but I honestly thought I would never again have used \u0026ldquo;y\u0026rsquo;all\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;fixin\u0026rsquo; to\u0026rdquo; in the same sentence. In fact, I think the drawl I have developed in the past 24 hours is more pronounced than any I ever had when living here.\nWell here is to you, Cedar Hill (as I switch figuratively to a personificatory monologue), to memories good and bad, to the overblown class, racial, and pastime distinctions that ruled my high school (dumb petty shit), to the friends I haven\u0026rsquo;t talked to in forever but am able to hang out with now as if I never moved to both coasts, to Mr. Jim\u0026rsquo;s pizza, to the wonderful haven of Dangerously, Ignorantly Nationalist Christian Fundamentalism that is North-Central Texas, and to the weather that changes its damn mind every two seconds. I\u0026rsquo;ll admit that you sucked me back in for a while, and that I was completely unprepared for both how you have changed and how you haven\u0026rsquo;t, how you have grown and how you haven\u0026rsquo;t. I\u0026rsquo;ll have to give you a bit more respect, I guess, more of a place in my story as I tell it. But for now it\u0026rsquo;s goodbye, and maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll see you again in some years.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/12/cedar-hill-tx/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOccasionally, maybe even most of the time, I seem to forget that I have anything resembling \u003cem\u003eroots\u003c/em\u003e. You know, childhood streets, trees that you climbed often enough to have favorite spots in, elementary school friends that you see making out at junior prom: in other words, a \u003cem\u003ehistory\u003c/em\u003e, or the necessary result of being somewhere long enough for something to happen. I suppose my pride at being from so many places all over the states and even overseas has translated into a subconscious averaging-out of my locational story. Though it is true, I don\u0026rsquo;t think of myself as having spent just under \u003cem\u003ehalf\u003c/em\u003e my life in a little Dallas suburb, because how can I let one place overpower all the others?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Cedar Hill, TX"},{"content":"The day or two after Thanksgiving is traditionally occupied, in my family, with setting up Christmas decorations. We usually have two trees (fake ones, but they\u0026rsquo;ve been with us for so long now it would be sacrilege to opt for a real tree even if we wanted the mess), one for looking all classy with its white lights, see-through glass ornaments, and gold tinsel, and the other for putting lots of colorful things on, including all the meaningful knick-knackish ornaments we\u0026rsquo;ve collected over the years. Then there\u0026rsquo;s the wreaths, the stockings, the candles, and the outside lights\u0026hellip;\nOf course, it never seems like work because of the two 6-CD cassettes which have contained the same Christmas CDs for what must be a decade (the continuity here lets us know that this Christmas, though it might be in a completely different year than before, is really going to be the same sort of thing), because of the cookies my mom makes, and because of the egg nog. I have always liked egg nog more than is perhaps considered normal, and wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind if it were available year-round.\nUnfortunately, my family had to do all these things without me this year, since I wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to go home for Thanksgiving. That notwithstanding, I resolved to do something to get into a Christmassy sort of mood, and so the three of us that are left in my suite at the moment went out and bought a tree, some decorations, and, of course, egg nog. Then we had ourselves a merry little Christmas party while putting things together and discovering (after a succession of empirical tests) the best ratio of Safeway Lite Egg Nog to Beverages N\u0026rsquo; More\u0026rsquo;s [not quite] finest brandy. The answer, of course, was all in the nutmeg to begin with. Music was courtesy of the Canadian Brass, whom we had imprisoned in a tiny glass disc and made to play just about all the standard tunes.\nIt was an exciting event, being the first time I\u0026rsquo;ve ever decorated a tree without my family. I\u0026rsquo;m fairly sure that at some point I\u0026rsquo;m going to get a picture printed of myself, Kyle, and Justin with the tree, and stencil \u0026ldquo;Our First Christmas!\u0026rdquo; on it as a really awesome joke. But for now, let this picture suffice. Our wonderful little tree, replete with tin-foil Star-of-David and holy glow (and that without Photoshop, I might add).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/11/o-tannenbaum/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe day or two after Thanksgiving is traditionally occupied, in my family, with setting up Christmas decorations. We usually have two trees (fake ones, but they\u0026rsquo;ve been with us for so long now it would be sacrilege to opt for a real tree even if we wanted the mess), one for looking all classy with its white lights, see-through glass ornaments, and gold tinsel, and the other for putting lots of colorful things on, including all the meaningful knick-knackish ornaments we\u0026rsquo;ve collected over the years. Then there\u0026rsquo;s the wreaths, the stockings, the candles, and the outside lights\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"O Tannenbaum"},{"content":"On Saturday the 22nd I went to my first Big Game. Big Game is the ongoing rivalry between Stanford and our \u0026ldquo;evil\u0026rdquo; arch-nemesis, UC Berkeley (though it\u0026rsquo;s admittedly hard to care when their most obvious failing is being too socially adept to get into Stanford), manifested in the form of a football game. Traditionally, it happens in the Autumn, when more college football seems to be played, and is the equivalent in this area of the world what the UT/A\u0026amp;M game is on the day after Thanksgiving in Texas.\nAt any rate somehow I\u0026rsquo;ve avoided going to this game for the first, second, and third years of my college career. Maybe I was out of town, didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like going, or (what\u0026rsquo;s more likely), didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like shelling out the $50 for the tickets. Such was also the case this year, though I was a bit more remorseful for having not put any effort into going, since it\u0026rsquo;s a major Stanford tradition, and since it\u0026rsquo;s my senior year.\nNow enter Beefeaters\u0026rsquo; Autumn 2003 Special Dinner, put on in the eating club by yours truly, together with the two other managers (if words like \u0026ldquo;Beefeaters\u0026rdquo; and phrases like \u0026ldquo;eating club\u0026rdquo; are unfamiliar, see this entry), on Friday the 21st. After the dinner, where there was much good food and much cheap wine, I retired with a flock of mostly-sober friends, among whom was my date for the evening Marie, to Marx, where we watched two and a half hours of mXc. If you ever get the chance to do this, by the way, grab that opportunity by the balls! (Or whichever body part is most painful to have grabbed while being less offensive to talk about).\nWhile engaging in this very worthwhile mindless activity, I told the general populace of my desire to go to Big Game, and that I have not been able to go in previous years (I made it sound like it wasn\u0026rsquo;t my fault, I must admit). Marie, who is head yell-leader and captain of this year\u0026rsquo;s school-spirit-inducing crazies, came up with a devious suggestion: why not have me don a Cardinal jumpsuit and enter the stadium with the yell-leaders, posing as one of them and thus avoiding the necessity of paying $50 to get in? Our friend Steve also \u0026ldquo;jumped\u0026rdquo; at the opportunity, and since there was a veritable bounty of jumpsuits, we made a pact (in blood, if you like) to go through with the daring plan.\nThe next morning I woke up, ready to brave the cold in my red Dickies jumpsuit, only to find out that things had gotten a little more adventurous than previous plans predicted. Steve, who was good friends with a number of important officials in both the LSJU [Stanford] Marching Band and the Tree Protection Services (to be explained later), was made privy to recent news concerning the Stanford Tree. Most people think the Tree is Stanford\u0026rsquo;s mascot, but to my knowledge this is not so. Instead, the Tree is the Band\u0026rsquo;s mascot, and the official mascot of the University is the color Cardinal. Needless to say, it is hard to dress up as a color, and so the Tree has taken on the role that a general mascot has at most other universities (running around, fighting other mascots, etc\u0026hellip;).\nAnyway, I learned from Steve that earlier in the week, just prior to Big Game, Cal (as we call UC Berkeley) had stolen the Tree costume, no doubt to see if it was smokable. The person who is this year\u0026rsquo;s Tree, anxious to have a Tree costume for Big Game, spent many hours making a new mascot, when he and the Tree Protection Services, which is a group consisting of Trees of previous years, and the purpose of which is to protect the Tree from mobbing and overzealous policewomen, got an anonymous tip that the stolen Tree was in a dumpster in a shopping center in the East Bay. They retreived this tree, battered and torn though it was (and missing an eye!), and resolved to one-up Cal somehow with it.\nAnd that is where I and Steve enter the picture. Since it was known that we were to enter the stadium sneakily anyhow, and that we had no other obligations, we were given the following task: we were to pick up the old Tree from the Band Shak, wrap it in a burial shroud (i.e., a large tarp), and carry it somberly in front of the Band and Tree/TPS as they made their classic music-filled entrance into the stadium. This was, no doubt, supposed to elicit a general curiosity (questions, you know, like, \u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s in the tarp?\u0026rdquo;, and so on). Steve and I performed marvelously in our red jumpsuits, and were even searched in a delightfully friendly manner by the Stanford police at the gate, who nevertheless seemed certain that the mass of PVC, cloth, and foam bundled in the nylon tarp was was worthy of suspicion.\nBut the mission did not end when we made it (successfully and without paying a cent, I might add) onto the field. We had to arrange for the delivery of an industrial-strength wood-chipper to the field at half-time. You see, the TPS wanted to have a ceremonial destruction of the old Tree, indicating that it had been soiled or made unworthy of existence insofar as it was stolen by Cal. When said wood-chipper did arrive, it was big and yellow and easily the most dangerous piece of machinery I have ever seen. It had upwards of 20 warning labels on it, including warning labels about the danger of not reading warning labels. My favorite one had a heading to the effect of, \u0026ldquo;READ THIS WARNING AND BELIEVE IT: YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT\u0026rdquo;.\nAt any rate we were able to get the wood-chipper on the field (more accurately, the sidelines) at half-time, and then Steve and I led a respectfully dirgeful procession, carrying the \u0026ldquo;dead\u0026rdquo; body of the old Tree in its burial shroud towards the TPS, who were waiting. After we stepped politely aside the fun began, and there was much shoving and jumping on the dangerous machine, and then many showers of brightly colored materials flying around, followed up with much insane dancing in the \u0026ldquo;ashes\u0026rdquo; of the deceased. All the while I stood there, probably being looked at by more people simultaneously than has ever happened in my life, and tried to be awesome. I think I can safely say that I was awesome, in my jumpsuit and Oakley sunglasses.\nThe rest of the game was spent on the sidelines, talking to the Band, getting expensive pizza from concessions, and talking about how best to protect the Tree if the Cal fans swarmed the field after the game (which happened last year, to the utter decimation of the goal posts and the injury of many people, and, fortunately or unfortunately, did not happen this year). Many of those around me also spent their time being breathalyzed by the hordes of police officers (one of whom had a go-cart with a large sign that read \u0026ldquo;MASCOT CONTROL\u0026rdquo;). Somehow I escaped this fate, though I would have preferred to have been breathalyzed, since everytime someone passed, he or she was given a loud hurrah by those present. (I guess for this to have been a rational preference I would have needed to be sure of my sobriety, which, luckily, I was).\nIn the end, Stanford lost the game, but I feel that my Big Game experience was not significantly dimmed by this fact, particularly in light of the price of admission. More importantly, I met a good number of current Stanford personages whom I otherwise would probably never have talked to, and had a central and exciting (if small) role in the proceedings of the day. The adventure, unfortunately, seems the less adventurous now that it has been a week, now that I am writing it in a weblog, and now that I have used about twice as many words as necessary to tell the tale. Then again, what secret-agent, getting-into-stadiums-for-free-wearing-a-jumpsuit escapades have you pulled off lately?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/11/big-game/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOn Saturday the 22nd I went to my first Big Game. Big Game is the ongoing rivalry between Stanford and our \u0026ldquo;evil\u0026rdquo; arch-nemesis, UC Berkeley (though it\u0026rsquo;s admittedly hard to care when their most obvious failing is being too socially adept to get into Stanford), manifested in the form of a football game. Traditionally, it happens in the Autumn, when more college football seems to be played, and is the equivalent in this area of the world what the UT/A\u0026amp;M game is on the day after Thanksgiving in Texas.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Big Game"},{"content":"Every so often, the tension inherent in life stretches to a breaking point, and there needs to be some kind of release, or we become neurotic. This is not to say that we don\u0026rsquo;t all have our little neuroses as it is, but that the danger of complete insanity is real, if we are unable to deal with its day-to-day precursors.\nTypically, my way of dealing, my way of massaging the strained muscles of my insipid humanity so that they do not snap, is to write music. Oftentimes the music will flow directly from whatever [exaggerated] angst I am experiencing, and at other times will have no obvious correlation to it. In either case it seems that the mere act of creation restores some balance, allows me to press on with whatever mundanities I am slogging through and leave behind thoughts of going postal. In other words, I am not an artist frivolously, nor am I an artist on weekends or just when it is convenient or popular\u0026ndash;I am an artist because I need creation to live. It really is food for my soul.\nIn an interesting twist this past week, I wrote a song, not in order to confront any particular inconsistency in my life, but more as a procrastinatory tool. However, in the process of writing it, I came to realize that there was a lot of unresolved tension in my heart, and this threw me into a withdrawn spiral of motivationless paralysis. I skipped class for the second half of the week and just refused to turn in homeworks that were due. The only thing I could do, it seemed, was record the song I had written. So I did. Listen to it, and you will enter my world as it has been for the last month.\nAs for the lyrics, they will not likely make much sense, so let me put it this way: the song is a story. Importantly, it is not a story about me. But I feel as if I am in it.\nThat being said, you can download the song, which is neither mixed nor mastered, nor inclusive of the various percussion instruments which I would like my brother to later add, here. Now maybe I can get on with all the work I\u0026rsquo;ve let pile up.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/11/arctic-wastelands-in-the-quest-for-character/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eEvery so often, the tension inherent in life stretches to a breaking point, and there needs to be some kind of release, or we become neurotic. This is not to say that we don\u0026rsquo;t all have our little neuroses as it is, but that the danger of complete insanity is real, if we are unable to deal with its day-to-day precursors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTypically, my way of dealing, my way of massaging the strained muscles of my insipid humanity so that they do not snap, is to write music. Oftentimes the music will flow directly from whatever [exaggerated] angst I am experiencing, and at other times will have no obvious correlation to it. In either case it seems that the mere act of creation restores some balance, allows me to press on with whatever mundanities I am slogging through and leave behind thoughts of going postal. In other words, I am not an artist frivolously, nor am I an artist on weekends or just when it is convenient or popular\u0026ndash;I am an artist because \u003cem\u003eI need creation to live\u003c/em\u003e. It really is food for my soul.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Arctic Wastelands in the Quest for Character"},{"content":"Last monday, the news came: the doctors had given up hope for Nick\u0026rsquo;s dad, and recommended that Nick and his family stay by his hospital bed during the night, so that they could be with him in his last moments on earth. I was in a small group meeting with a handful of other guys when Nick called us\u0026ndash;some of Nick\u0026rsquo;s closest companions here at Stanford. We went through a range of emotions between the seven of us; mine were primarily frustration and anger at God for deciding not to grant our longtime requests of healing.\nYet hope there was still, and my heart was troubled with it as I went home to do work that night. I ended up awake until 4 AM, a large portion of that time on my knees on the floor, head buried in my futon. Anger gave way to hopelessness even as frustration turned to our Savior for hope, and the contradiction of independent will and that inevitable fatalism we all fall into squeezed prayer after prayer out of my heart and soul, while wringing the salinity from my eyes in lonely little drops. Eventually I faded into sleep, only to wake up to the e-mail: Nick\u0026rsquo;s dad had passed away. \u0026ldquo;Fuck!\u0026rdquo; I thought with the little half-laugh that means I am desperately angry, along with most of the other unclean words that have recently taken up residence in my head language. And that was that. A big fat \u0026ldquo;No\u0026rdquo; from our Heavenly Father, who promises us every good thing. Case closed. Sarcasm apparent.\nThursday I flew, along with two of Nick\u0026rsquo;s other friends, to St. Louis for Mr. Bott\u0026rsquo;s memorial service. The visitation was that first night, and so we stood in line at Bopp chapel to say something to each of the survived. We mumbled the usual empty condolences and longed for some more tangible way of showing our love and our empathy. How do you make conversation with someone who has lost a family member? But Nick was happy to see us and seemed to be filled with a peace and joy completely out of place under the circumstances; obviously, it flowed straight from the realization that the waxen and cold collection of flesh always in sight, a mere 6 feet away, was not the end of his father. Indeed, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t his father. Not anymore.\nThat was the first time I had ever seen a \u0026hellip; (shit, how do I call it? A \u0026ldquo;dead body\u0026rdquo;? A \u0026ldquo;corpse\u0026rdquo;? Certainly not that, and certainly not a \u0026ldquo;cadaver\u0026rdquo;. Damn all the insensitive words we use). There was an aura of wrongness about the whole thing: some essence of humanity was missing from the coffin. It was hard to classify the remains inside; here was the physical construction that had loved and raised a family, and had been a part of God\u0026rsquo;s kingdom on earth, yet I\u0026rsquo;ve seen figures in a wax museum with more life. It is as I said before\u0026ndash;the thing before us was not Mr. Bott, but some kind of outer shell he had shed. I realized with a shock, then, that in death we have proof of the soul, since if nothing left our bodies after death, we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be bombarded by this overwhelming sense that something is missing, fled, gone. Blood not circulating and synapses not firing don\u0026rsquo;t explain that.\nFriday morning we attended the funeral at Nick\u0026rsquo;s church. As at the visitation, the number and diversity of people present were a testament to Nick\u0026rsquo;s dad\u0026rsquo;s love and the sphere of good influence he had. Nick himself gave one of two eulogies, and I almost lost it as I saw him up there saying goodbye to his dad, and taking the opportunity to explain why he had the hope that his father was no longer the body, now closed forever to the world, on the pedestal in the center of the church. He shared powerfully, with conviction and joy, and I didn\u0026rsquo;t wonder that his dad was cheering him on from Heaven, if such things are possible.\nFor the rest of the weekend, I and Peter and Dave (that had flown in from Stanford) did our best to take Nick\u0026rsquo;s mind off everything. We visited some of the apparently standard places to eat and hang out in St. Louis, and saw Matrix 3 with Nick and some of his high school friends. Very little of the time was super meaningful, but it was good just to be there with Nick and have that be evidence of our love for him and his family. There\u0026rsquo;s really nothing to say, anyway, that can make it easier for them. Love, in this case (as in most others, I\u0026rsquo;d guess), has nothing to do with words, but presence. I can only hope that our small extension of his Stanford community was a comfort to him.\nNow I am back at Stanford, and feeling, perhaps to a tenth of a degree, what Nick is probably feeling: what we are doing here is not ultimately what\u0026rsquo;s important. An A+ in a course, a degree from Stanford, a million-dollar-a-year job\u0026hellip;none of these things will stave off the inevitable or bring us closer to the eternal souls of other people. So how do we live in the world while extracting the most, truly long-term, riches from it, when we are advised, and indeed our very nature tells us, not to? Who knows. Trust God and love people, maybe. And keep in mind that someday I will leave behind my own wrinkled shell, trading the copy for the real thing: sharp, beautiful, physical, and real.\n_For as high as the heavens are above the earth,\n_ _so great is his love for those who fear him;\n_ _as far as the east is from the west,\n_ _so far has he removed our transgressions from us.\n_ _As a father has compassion on his children,\n_ _so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;\n_ _for he knows how we are formed,\n_ he remembers that we are dust.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/11/we-are-dust/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eLast monday, the news came: the doctors had given up hope for Nick\u0026rsquo;s dad, and recommended that Nick and his family stay by his hospital bed during the night, so that they could be with him in his last moments on earth. I was in a small group meeting with a handful of other guys when Nick called us\u0026ndash;some of Nick\u0026rsquo;s closest companions here at Stanford. We went through a range of emotions between the seven of us; mine were primarily frustration and anger at God for deciding not to grant our longtime requests of healing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"We Are Dust"},{"content":"Tonight, for the first time in my 3.2-yr college career, I studied in a library. This may sound strange and obviously or necessarily false, but it is most assuredly true. Perhaps the most interesting part, however, is that I really can\u0026rsquo;t think of any reasons why it is true. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I realized, \u0026ldquo;Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve never gone to the library to study like all my friends do.\u0026rdquo; This must have been the end of freshman or sophomore year.\nFrom there, all you connoisseurs of that tangled and irreverent personality that is Jonathan Lipps should be able to surmise the progression. The just-noted, and highly irrelevant, difference between myself and those around me turned into a matter of equally irrelevant pride. And, since this is the only kind of pride I can really have in the circles I run in, without getting a lecturing-to, I relished it until it grew and took form of its own accord, becoming the odd fact it is (or was, I should say) today.\nYou see, it made me so damn interesting. Someone I knew (or didn\u0026rsquo;t know: picture a first conversation with a pretty Stanford girl, perhaps) would be talking about how she \u0026ldquo;has to go the library to study,\u0026rdquo; or might be asking me a question about Green, Stanford\u0026rsquo;s main library. \u0026ldquo;Do you know where Special Collections is?\u0026rdquo; let\u0026rsquo;s say. And I could throw back, in a delightfully offhanded tone, \u0026ldquo;Oh, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t know. I\u0026rsquo;ve never been there.\u0026rdquo; To which there would be the usual shrieks (\u0026ldquo;Shit! You\u0026rsquo;re a senior!\u0026rdquo;), proving that I, the quintessential I\u0026rsquo;m-not-a-part-of-this-stupid-culture-er, am truly not a part of this stupid culture.\nI imagine that this strategy has in some ways backfired, forestalling all the intimate \u0026ldquo;study\u0026rdquo; dates I might have had at the library. But I like to think that the newfound respect I accrue after conversations like the above is worth something more in the long run.\nAnyway, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to keep up a tribute of my not-going-to-the-library-ness after I\u0026rsquo;ve just given up on it (or given in, as it were), but I thought, by way of eulogy, that it behooved me to report it before it grew dim, hidden in the reaches of time. So, here\u0026rsquo;s goodbye, unimportant habit #2,058!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/10/green-library/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTonight, for the first time in my 3.2-yr college career, I studied in a library. This may sound strange and obviously or necessarily false, but it is most assuredly true. Perhaps the most interesting part, however, is that I really can\u0026rsquo;t think of any reasons \u003cem\u003ewhy\u003c/em\u003e it is true. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I realized, \u0026ldquo;Hey, I\u0026rsquo;ve never gone to the library to study like all my friends do.\u0026rdquo; This must have been the end of freshman or sophomore year.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Green Library"},{"content":"Welcome to my new home! Please feel free to have a look around and check out the changes I\u0026rsquo;ve made to the site. Also, feel free to leave some comments with impressions about the design or anything else. Finally, sit back as I relate the answer to your deepest, most burning question: \u0026ldquo;Why does that silly Jonathan Lipps need a new blog design every few months?\u0026rdquo;\nWell, the short of it is, after a year and a half with Blogger, I decided that our relationship really wasn\u0026rsquo;t working out anymore. Now enter Movable Type, with whom I flirted earlier this summer in helping Jason to re-make his weblog. Since then, I\u0026rsquo;ve been dreaming of switching over myself, and have just been waiting for the perfect opportunity.\nNow enter said perfect opportunity in the form of schoolwork. One (you, for example), wouldn\u0026rsquo;t think that schoolwork could be an opportunity for web design, since they both generally compete for my time. However, I have found that it is really only when I have serious work to do that my procrastination takes the form of a useful endeavor. If I had no schoolwork, I would \u0026ldquo;procrastinate\u0026rdquo; by playing video games or climbing or running or playing guitar. If I were to state the principle more broadly, it might be this: the more serious the workload, the higher the utility of my procrastination. All in all, I\u0026rsquo;m sort of a fan of this way of life because it makes me more productive when I am supposedly \u0026ldquo;loaded down\u0026rdquo; with work. Backwards, I know.\nBut there, you\u0026rsquo;ve got a bit of the story behind this particular design change. As for the chronic nature of my re-design tendencies, I don\u0026rsquo;t have a particularly good answer. I do, however, have a chronicle of these chronic itches [that was some kind of literary device I used there: \u0026ldquo;chronicle\u0026rdquo;/\u0026ldquo;chronic\u0026rdquo; right together like that] located in the ABOUT section of this website. Check it out!\nSo much for that. Anyway, I hope you\u0026rsquo;re happy with the new interface and I hope you use it well. Unfortunately, all your comments from my old blog have been completely lost. The upside to this is that, the way I had them before (using YACCS), they would all be lost eventually anyway. Now your comments will be stored with each entry forever, and never archived or made invisible. So comment away!\nLastly, I do apologize for not having written in such a long time. My life is interesting right now and I know you\u0026rsquo;re all dying to live vicariously through me [\u0026ldquo;dying to live\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; that\u0026rsquo;s another literary device there]. I am just hoping that the sweet awesomeness of this new site will make up somewhat for that lack. Cheers!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/10/criticism-as-inspiration/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome to my new home! Please feel free to have a look around and check out the changes I\u0026rsquo;ve made to the site. Also, feel free to leave some comments with impressions about the design or anything else. Finally, sit back as I relate the answer to your deepest, most burning question: \u0026ldquo;Why does that silly Jonathan Lipps need a new blog design every few months?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell, the short of it is, after a year and a half with Blogger, I decided that our relationship really wasn\u0026rsquo;t working out anymore. Now enter Movable Type, with whom I flirted earlier this summer in helping \u003ca href=\"http://www.jasonkill.com\"\u003eJason\u003c/a\u003e to re-make his weblog. Since then, I\u0026rsquo;ve been dreaming of switching over myself, and have just been waiting for the perfect opportunity.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Criticism As Inspiration"},{"content":"the past few weeks have been so indigestably full of innumerable activities, there\u0026rsquo;s no way i can relate most of what\u0026rsquo;s happened recently. but that\u0026rsquo;s ok, since neither you nor i would care to read about it anyway.\nthe short of it is i am back at stanford amidst the busiest quarter of my career (so far). i\u0026rsquo;ve got classes more or less settled on, and enough homework to make me procrastinate. but like i said, that\u0026rsquo;s not really interesting.\nof some interest, maybe, is this: in roughly 3 hours i will be 21. the last coming-of-age experience of my life. here already\u0026hellip;..and i don\u0026rsquo;t know what to think about that, this toeing the line between \u0026ldquo;young man\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;man\u0026rdquo;. there\u0026rsquo;s an incredible sense of loneliness, silly as it may seem, moving from a smaller, simpler, and maybe more innocent class of people into the class of people that most just consider \u0026ldquo;everyone\u0026rdquo;. i will be fully a citizen and an adult of this world, with all rights and privileges appertaining. it\u0026rsquo;s funny that in the states effectively the last privilege of adulthood is that of drinking alcohol. it seems so completely arbitrary, and it is. it is. but it\u0026rsquo;s a marker of freedom for me to drink; not just freedom from condemnation by uncle sam, but the spiritual freedom we have in christ. if that sounds odd or backwards to you, i am sorry.\nit\u0026rsquo;s the coming-of-age that draws and excites me, though, not the thought of the liquor that i will no doubt be guzzling in shameful quantities in a few hours. that\u0026rsquo;s the external, the base and unrefined and uncouth symbol of a nobler internal reality\u0026ndash;the rite of passage phenomenon that has been a part of man\u0026rsquo;s (and here i mean male) life for ages. and there is a contradiction here, you will say, a cheapening of that reality (which you maybe doubt exists) via the external actions used to signify it. but i say, the problem is not in the base and unrefined and uncouth, for all these things i assuredly am, but who am i to pretend to a nobler inner reality? and so if there is a contradiction it is because i am reaching for something higher than i am, not because i already have it.\ni will agree, however, that were it not for the fact that i am listening to the deep and beautiful music of sigur ros, i might not have just made such outrageous claims. this does not lessen the strength of my belief in them, though you might catch me tomorrow laughing at myself for having said these things. haha! like that.\nthe point is, i am now grown up, whether i like it or not, and regardless of the fact that a number (21) is the most arbitrary of all forms of measuring maturity. with that growth comes responsibility, whether i like it or not, and whether its existence is a self-made phantasm.\nthese are heavy things for me to ponder on and to give to god, but i for one am just glad to have had 21 years of existence and to have been blessed in all ways undeservedly. still, i must not let myself look back and linger too long on my story just yet, because i might get caught up in its beauty (and it is beautiful, though i had no part in making it so) and forget that the story is not finished, but beginning. but i let slide a few tears of joy anyways, first because i believe that i have a story, that i am a story, and that i am part of the vectored story that is christ\u0026rsquo;s universe, and second because the shadow of grace has always hovered over the chaos of my soul.\nthe first thing i will do at 12 am on september 26, 2003, will be offer my entire being in prayer to the god of my heart. and the second will be to down a pint of the finest beer i can find in palo alto, drinking that god\u0026rsquo;s health. slainte!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/09/happy-21st/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe past few weeks have been so indigestably full of innumerable activities, there\u0026rsquo;s no way i can relate most of what\u0026rsquo;s happened recently. but that\u0026rsquo;s ok, since neither you nor i would care to read about it anyway.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe short of it is i am back at stanford amidst the busiest quarter of my career (so far). i\u0026rsquo;ve got classes more or less settled on, and enough homework to make me procrastinate. but like i said, that\u0026rsquo;s not really interesting.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Happy 21st"},{"content":"it\u0026rsquo;s been a good summer, but it\u0026rsquo;s time for it to end. yesterday i went through with my annual ritual of going to cocoa beach alone in the morning before the start of fall quarter. the past 3 years it\u0026rsquo;s been a brief moment of peace and relaxation within which i can focus and ask for god\u0026rsquo;s blessing on the coming year. this year was no different, and i feel as prepared as ever (which, incidentally, is not very prepared) for autumn quarter.\ni\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to the year with quite more than the usual bit of fear, because there are a number of things that will have to work out just right in order for me to graduate, as i\u0026rsquo;ve been planning, with two degrees in june. there\u0026rsquo;s also the fear of thinking about applying to doctorate programs, if i decide that\u0026rsquo;s what i\u0026rsquo;m going to do. i picked up an application packet from oxford university when i was there last week, but i haven\u0026rsquo;t looked at it yet. summer\u0026rsquo;s not that far gone!\nthere\u0026rsquo;s also, of course, a sense of excitement: that good old back-to-school feeling i\u0026rsquo;ve had ever since elementary school. and while the joy this year will be not so much in supplies and shiny new trapper-keeper notebooks, but in seeing friends and moving into a new apartment, it is a joy nonetheless.\nas part of the reflection process i went through yesterday morning, and also last night as i sat in the spa and smoked my peterson standard system 303, i\u0026rsquo;ve been confronted with things about myself that will have to change if i\u0026rsquo;m going to have a successful and growthful year. these are, for the most part, the same sorts of things i\u0026rsquo;ve been confronted with all throughout college, but somehow they\u0026rsquo;ve evaded my steadfast self-control and escaped eradication (the sarcasm should be obvious there). and yet as i look backwards, my own character flaws and personal failings are more crystallized, more real and thereby more easily laughed at (it\u0026rsquo;s funny [no pun intended], but i think self-humor is an integral part of the growth process). thus i am hopeful for a year that is successful, not just academically, but also personally, and in my relationships with christ and the beautiful people at stanford (everyone\u0026rsquo;s beautiful).\nso it will be a year of change, if only because i can\u0026rsquo;t see beyond it: there is no certain \u0026ldquo;next step\u0026rdquo;, the way there has been for the past 15 years of my life, and that\u0026rsquo;s exciting. this also might be the last time i will sit in my house on sunnybrook ct. in orlando, because it\u0026rsquo;s going up for sale and might be sold before christmas. things are shaking in life, and that\u0026rsquo;s a place i love to be.\nwell, now it\u0026rsquo;s time to go to the airport and board a plane bound for san jose, so here\u0026rsquo;s to the end of summer, and the start of my last year at stanford! cheers.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/09/out-with-the-old-in-with/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit\u0026rsquo;s been a good summer, but it\u0026rsquo;s time for it to end. yesterday i went through with my annual ritual of going to cocoa beach alone in the morning before the start of fall quarter. the past 3 years it\u0026rsquo;s been a brief moment of peace and relaxation within which i can focus and ask for god\u0026rsquo;s blessing on the coming year. this year was no different, and i feel as prepared as ever (which, incidentally, is not very prepared) for autumn quarter.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"out with the old, in with..."},{"content":"oh yeah, i\u0026rsquo;m going to england for a week! see you later.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/09/england-2003-second-time/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eoh yeah, i\u0026rsquo;m going to england for a week! see you later.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"england 2003, second time"},{"content":"every day at work, i go into the break room, on average, three or four times. usually it\u0026rsquo;s to refill my 16-ounce styrofoam cup with the refreshing, ice cold water from the cooler. other times it might be to cook up a delicious rice bowl (\u0026ldquo;poke through plastic cover. microwave on high for 5 minutes. let stand for 1 minute. for best flavor, stir before eating\u0026rdquo;). i\u0026rsquo;ll even make the occasional cup of coffee.\nsomething happens every time i go in there. i notice a cabinet which, i think to myself, i may not have discovered before. it\u0026rsquo;s off in the corner, so it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be a surprise that i hadn\u0026rsquo;t come across it. on it there is a little label which reads, \u0026ldquo;snacks // extra supplies\u0026rdquo;. for a moment, when i see this, my heart stops beating. snacks! could it really be? could there be free snacks at work, which i could take back to my desk and eat? in a rush of joy i open the cabinet door to find\u0026hellip;a couple salt shakers and a box of coffee filters.\nin a sad, betrayed sort of way, i slowly close the door and stand for a second or two, drooping and defeated. my steps back to my desk are slow and somber. that cabinet lied to me, and about something so precious as snacks!\nthere\u0026rsquo;s a little glimpse of hell, i think, when you\u0026rsquo;re promised snacks and you get\u0026hellip;salt.\n\\\\\\*\nin other news, altimar IV was fun! we hung out at the beach and played games for days straight. glorious. furthermore, chris\u0026rsquo; mysterious utterance via the comment board on my last post should now be regarded as having been a prophetic utterance, and the of-ageness of 80% of our brethren did indeed play a part in our recreation.\nwell, david and rachel have now both gone off to school for the year, leaving me in orlando with just mom and dad. one and a half more weeks of work, and then my summer will also come to a close as i go off to europe and then to school!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/08/chronic-disappointment/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eevery day at work, i go into the break room, on average, three or four times. usually it\u0026rsquo;s to refill my 16-ounce styrofoam cup with the refreshing, ice cold water from the cooler. other times it might be to cook up a delicious rice bowl (\u0026ldquo;poke through plastic cover. microwave on high for 5 minutes. let stand for 1 minute. for best flavor, stir before eating\u0026rdquo;). i\u0026rsquo;ll even make the occasional cup of coffee.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"chronic disappointment"},{"content":"altimar is this weekend. now, in fact.\naltimar. AL-tih-mar (or, optionally, AL-tuh-mar). it\u0026rsquo;s a word to strike awe into the hearts of all who hear it. it is a good word, and it betokens connotations of sun, sand, and the beauty of friendship. of course, it is a made up word (one which, however, has entered into quite common usage in some circles).\nsome might think that it is derived from the latin/spanish \u0026ldquo;alt\u0026rdquo;, signifying height or tallness or greatness. others might think that the phoneme \u0026ldquo;mar\u0026rdquo; is likewise derived from latin/spanish, and must therefore impart information about the sea. given the fact that altimar is indeed great/awesome, and given its necessary connection to the ocean, these etymological guesses would seem to be right on. unfortunately, they are wrong. \u0026ldquo;altimar\u0026rdquo; is derived from no previously existing words and relies neither on any for its meaning.\nwell then, what is altimar? it refers to the one weekend of the year, usually sometime in early august, in which the Eastwood Posse (consisting, as you know, of josh (aka dj jazzy josh, aka josser brown), chris (aka chris cross aka nyffy), nate (aka naughty by nate), mark (aka markemark aka stumpy), andy (aka skinny talls aka andor), chris (aka scratchmasta slim aka soundfxman), and myself (aka wycliffe jon aka uncle caveman)) goes on a camping trip. here is a brief rundown of what\u0026rsquo;s gone before:\naltimar i - 2000: we went to st. augustine and camped. we had the first annual grocery shopping competition. many pranks were played. andy\u0026rsquo;s jeep broke down. it was possibly the most exciting and adventuresome altimar ever. we had lots of hot dogs and mayonnaise. josh and mark bought some really dumb bug-eyed sunglasses. i made a cool video of the trip. (oh, and josh met his hemmingfriend). unfortunately, nate couldn\u0026rsquo;t make this trip.\naltimar ii: reloaded (also subtitled attack of the spydars) - 2001: camped at st. augustine again. it rained a lot. we played a lot of beach sports, including whateverballTM. this was the year of the chick-cruisersTM. all 7 of us had skateboards and razor scooters, which we cruised around downtown st. augustine with, picking up chicks left and right. the girl at the pizza place called me her husband, and we made a skate video in a deserted bank parking lot. we did a lot better on buying food. all 7 of us were there!\naltimar iii: return of the spydars - 2002: the most recent altimar! it was definitely the most chill. we camped at st. augustine again, but spent most of our time off the grounds at a smoke shop, where we became great friends with ticker, the manager. we all chain-smoked cloves (except nate and andor) and cigars. there really isn\u0026rsquo;t a lot more to tell, except one night we made up a great game with the frisbee and a flashlight. it involved there being two teams: one with one person and one with everybody else. the solo guy had a flashlight which he could use to blind everyone else, who all tried to throw a frisbee at him and hit him. we also had a long game of hide-and-seek where i eluded everyone until they lost interest. once again, all 7 of us were there and had an awesome time playing at the beach, smoking, and playing euchre.\naltimar iv: revolutions - 2003: i\u0026rsquo;m calling this year \u0026ldquo;revolutions\u0026rdquo;, since we\u0026rsquo;re doing something majorly different. we\u0026rsquo;re not going to st. augustine! and, we\u0026rsquo;re not even camping! instead, we\u0026rsquo;ll be going to the marvelous \u0026ldquo;el caribe\u0026rdquo; at daytona. staying in a resort room right on the beach, we will have immediate access to the sand, and cover when it rains. nevertheless, despite the obvious advantages, it\u0026rsquo;s really a toss-up how this altimar will turn out, since we will have strayed from the formula. i, for one, am betting that it will be completely awesome, and that many songs will be written about our great exploits. but we will just have to see. unfortunately for us, both josh and nate are out of state and won\u0026rsquo;t be at altimar this year. it will be that much less of an experience without them, but the 5 of us who are left will press on and smoke for 7 (or more).\nwell, i\u0026rsquo;ll be back sunday. here\u0026rsquo;s to the greatest tradition ever!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/08/altimar-2003/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ealtimar is this weekend. now, in fact.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ealtimar\u003c/em\u003e. AL-tih-mar (or, optionally, AL-tuh-mar). it\u0026rsquo;s a word to strike awe into the hearts of all who hear it. it is a good word, and it betokens connotations of sun, sand, and the beauty of friendship. of course, it is a made up word (one which, however, has entered into quite common usage in some circles).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esome might think that it is derived from the latin/spanish \u0026ldquo;alt\u0026rdquo;, signifying height or tallness or greatness. others might think that the phoneme \u0026ldquo;mar\u0026rdquo; is likewise derived from latin/spanish, and must therefore impart information about the sea. given the fact that altimar is indeed great/awesome, and given its necessary connection to the ocean, these etymological guesses would seem to be right on. unfortunately, they are wrong. \u0026ldquo;altimar\u0026rdquo; is derived from no previously existing words and relies neither on any for its meaning.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"altimar 2003"},{"content":"[note: this text is compiled from charred fragments of the extraordinary diary of an english expatriate gentleman, monsieur roger choltham, who perished from the earth, along with his house and possessions, in 1749. his residence in the countryside near avignon caught flame in the middle of the night on july 31st and burned nearly to the ground. because of the distance at which mssr. choltham lived from the nearest villages, the tragedy was not noticed until the following day, as is chronicled in sorgues\u0026rsquo; town log. all the people from these villages wondered at the event, just as they had always wondered what the englishman\u0026rsquo;s business was in france. none, however, felt the need to mourn choltham\u0026rsquo;s passing, for he had been somewhat of a recluse, living without matron or maid or heir in his house, which could better have been called a mansion. and besides, his french was not so good. a cursory search was made of the debris before the property was cleared and auctioned to one mssr. desruisseaux, who had always thought it a shame choltham had let the fields about his house lay fallow. choltham\u0026rsquo;s body was never found, but this is the nature of fires. as for the diary, it was burned in a very curious fashion, such that all entries before what appears to be the last, july 25th, disintegrated upon touch, but july 25th itself was preserved with little damage. it is presented here, reconstructed where necessary by myself and my colleagues at oxford. - N. Rochinauld, ed.]\njuly 25th, 1749\nthat thing which i have feared above all else happened yestereve, and the events of today confirm it beyond no doubt. i am the last of our order. my order, i should say now. i had known we were few, declining in the world, but so few? i suppose the curse has accelerated and, one-by-one, fallen on my brethren in england and india, and i despair that our great libraries at bombay and cambridge will fall out of existence. so much wisdom and learning, covered in dust for too long, is now to become it.\nbut that is the course we chose when we closed the doors to our order and sued the gods for immortality, hoping to preserve things as they were forever. why in all our wisdom could we not see that immortality is always at someone\u0026rsquo;s expense? why didn\u0026rsquo;t we anticipate a counter-suit? and the particular gods who had granted us immortality so swfitly were all too happy, in their damnable treachery wherein they derive their twisted joy, to grant the prosecutors\u0026rsquo; request just as swiftly. so we were cursed. marked.\nnot all of us were, immediately. in fact, i didn\u0026rsquo;t believe in the curse until i heard about the Passing of professor ransfeld, and then later made sure of it with my own eyes; professorship had assuredly Passed to my colleague darmon, who transformed in front of me as proof. this was a curiosity! we had thought there would be no more Passings after we became immortal, but the gods had found a loophole in the pact: we never specified that we wished to live forever in our world. among gentlemen, and respectable gods, this would have been taken as given, but is clear that the gods we dealt with were barbarians and connivers.\nand so, because these demons, as they should more properly be called, stole life from innocents (against our knowledge and will) and gave it to us, and because the innocents objected (as one would expect), the demons cursed our order, so that the current professor would eventually leave this world and be forced to live out his immortality in another (and knowing now how cunning are the gods, i would not wager that this other world is a kind one). since the binds of the rite of the Passing are restricted to this world only, it has returned, even though ransfeld never actually died.\nwe were somewhat relieved that the curse only affected the current professor, but that is the trouble with immortality: because of the curse, we would all eventually be professors, and be forced to suffer that the curse depart us from this world. and so it happened to me last night. it happened to me, the lowest in our order and therefore the last to be Passed the professorship and the last to remain yet on the earth.\ni proved my professorship to myself by becoming an owl and flying to sorgues and then the six miles to avignon and back. it was exhilirating, but already the curse is doing its work. i feel that my professorship will be the shortest in the history of the order, and now i understand why ransfeld and darmon and the rest went crazy before they left; they could see glimpses of the world to which they were going.\nwhen i laid myself down to sleep last night and closed my eyes, i had my first vision of it, and it burned my eyes. i saw that i was in a wide expanse, and there were people around me. a red mist swirled about us, choking me and causing tears to stream down my face, and so for a long while i could not discern what these others were doing. i learned, after clearing my eyes, that they were tilling the earth with some kind of glowing implement, which i took to be molten metal that somehow retained a solid shape. the pain involved in holding the tool was obvious, and it seemed that the red mist actually emanated from the subdued groans of the people and from there made a link with the others around them, so that if i looked carefully i could discern that the mist formed a moving grid, with heavier and lighter patches, that connected everyone together.\nthe folk themselves were dressed in heavy black cloth, robed and cowled so that i could see nothing of them save the pain. they did not notice me, and in fact i did not feel as if i were physically in that place, or i would surely have been burned by the dead, steaming sludge that passed for earth. i never learned why the people were working the hellish field, as there was nothing growing, nor do i think there could ever be anything good grown there.\njust after i had been able to notice this, i shuddered with the most potent feeling of shame i have ever experienced. i saw that i was not completely disconnected from the world i was spying on, for all the slaves, as they obviously were, stopped their meaningless toil and shuddered as well. they seemed to draw into themselves, as if experiencing the same shame i had felt. and then i saw the source of this emotion, which, upon reflection while writing this diary entry, must have been one of the minions of the very gods we had made a pact with.\nat that point, however, i was altogether consumed by the shame-producing object that was approaching. it is hard to describe it though it seared my soul: it was not a shameful thing, but instead much more like shame as a thing. it had no particular shape as it floated among us, but flickered from form to form, conveying failure and indecency (one of its favourite forms was unmistakably a phallus). wherever the thing went (and as i looked about i noticed that there were more than one of these unholy spirits drifting through the vast fields of black-robed sufferers), the red mist which tied the slaves to each other and to their harmful labor grew stronger and more defined.\nthe people, though it was obvious they knew the floating devils were there, took no notice of them, but instead turned their faces as if to hide them deeper in their black hoods, endlessly churning the burning soil and endlessly churning out more ethereal chain via their pains.\ni realized, since i was only seeing a vision and not yet a vassal in the fiery fief myself, and since my mind hadn\u0026rsquo;t been continually ravaged by pain and shame like those of the slaves (my great tutors ransfeld and darmon were among them, as i eventually caught their faces, grimacing and unawares of my presence), that these shifting, floating demons were the police, the very right hand of the god who was king of this hell.\nthen i opened my eyes, and i knew that no time had passed at all since i\u0026rsquo;d closed them. the vision was gone, but small flames started to lick at the edges of my sight. they are doing so even now, and i know that it will not be long before the bindings call me to that world permanently.\ni do not know if my predecessors were granted the same extensive vision of their future home as i was. and i do not know if my mind will be altered so much when i arrive there that i will slavishly allow my own shame to provide ever-stronger bonds to useless existence. but maybe as the last of my order to pay the price for our dealing with devils in laws and magics in which we thought ourselves wise, i could be the first to throw off the burden of shame and strike back against the evil gods. what we need is a rebellion, right now, and i intend to lead it.\nbut presently i must order things here for my departure. i will speak a command that all record of the order\u0026rsquo;s activities, purposes, and existence be destroyed on my Passing (for such is the right of professor), except that this journal entry be left unspoiled. for what i have seen with my eyes closed is too horrible to be ignored, and if by reading this some might come to be aware of our order, against the regulations that have been in place since the beginning, it is but a small thing compared to the good it might do to warn the world against making agreements with treacherous spirits, and what curses can be avoided thereby.\nresolved,\nroger s. choltham\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/of-fire-and-chains/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e[note: this text is compiled from charred fragments of the extraordinary diary of an english expatriate gentleman, monsieur roger choltham, who perished from the earth, along with his house and possessions, in 1749. his residence in the countryside near avignon caught flame in the middle of the night on july 31st and burned nearly to the ground. because of the distance at which mssr. choltham lived from the nearest villages, the tragedy was not noticed until the following day, as is chronicled in sorgues\u0026rsquo; town log. all the people from these villages wondered at the event, just as they had always wondered what the englishman\u0026rsquo;s business was in france. none, however, felt the need to mourn choltham\u0026rsquo;s passing, for he had been somewhat of a recluse, living without matron or maid or heir in his house, which could better have been called a mansion. and besides, his french was not so good. a cursory search was made of the debris before the property was cleared and auctioned to one mssr. desruisseaux, who had always thought it a shame choltham had let the fields about his house lay fallow. choltham\u0026rsquo;s body was never found, but this is the nature of fires. as for the diary, it was burned in a very curious fashion, such that all entries before what appears to be the last, july 25th, disintegrated upon touch, but july 25th itself was preserved with little damage. it is presented here, reconstructed where necessary by myself and my colleagues at oxford. - N. Rochinauld, ed.]\u003c/p\u003e","title":"of fire and chains"},{"content":"i recently helped my friend jason give his blog a new feel. you should check it out. i also updated the sidebar. sorry, nothing else interesting is happening.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/movable-type/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei recently helped my friend \u003ca href=\"http://www.jasonkill.com\"\u003ejason\u003c/a\u003e give his blog a new feel. you should check it out. i also updated the sidebar. sorry, nothing else interesting is happening.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"movable type"},{"content":"in roughly chronological order:\n1. i got a new electric guitar! it\u0026rsquo;s a carlo robelli ush-500hb, and it is beautiful and cool. (and, i will be using it to play the first splendour hyaline show ever, tomorrow night!)\n2. i started playing ultimate frisbee again. dav and i have been going out sunday afternoons to a place in lake nona. it\u0026rsquo;s good to run around and throw the disc, and occasionally make a spectacular play. competition is always pretty good!\n3. i started work at excelsis, a non-profit company here in downtown orlando. it\u0026rsquo;s really cool, and i\u0026rsquo;ve been having a sweet time as the summer intern. check out the website for more info on what excelsis is. the only downside to the whole deal is the driving to work (leave house at 7:40am), and the driving home (get home at 6:15pm). since i need a lot of sleep, that means my free time per day is about 3 hours. no fun! i haven\u0026rsquo;t got to hang out with practically anybody.\n4. dav and i have been climbing pretty frequently as well, since we got memberships at aiguille, and we\u0026rsquo;re starting to see some marked improvement after our rather poor start-of-summer attempts.\n5. i\u0026rsquo;ve been beta-testing a new online computer game called savage. because of work i haven\u0026rsquo;t really been able to play very much, but i\u0026rsquo;ve got pretty decent and it\u0026rsquo;s a fun game.\n6. last weekend, dav and i drove up to gainesville to visit chris and jason and paul. we each (sans paul) ate a stogie burger from conestoga\u0026rsquo;s on saturday. they contain 1-lb hunks of meat. wow. that\u0026rsquo;s a lot of meat. we also visited the gainesville ale house, place of much repute and renown. the highlight of the trip, though, was seeing jasser\u0026rsquo;s and nyffy\u0026rsquo;s new project: the bewitching hour, which is a superb work of art.\n7. as you can tell, dav and i have been hanging out a lot.\n8. i\u0026rsquo;ve been reading the chronicles of narnia (in chronological, not authored, order). i put down the first two before gainesville, and then horse and his boy and prince caspian this weekend at gainesville. i\u0026rsquo;d forgotten how much these books really rock (in fact there\u0026rsquo;s been at least one point in each story where i have teared up. it\u0026rsquo;s more gripping now than it ever was as a child).\n9. i did something sneaky and underhanded and bad: i went behind your backs and created another blog. a lot of people i have met from work, and some of their relations, have a weblog community which i have been privileged enough to join. don\u0026rsquo;t worry\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ll still post here! but you may want to check the other occasionally for more on-topic and well-thought-out posts.\nwell, that is about it. other than that i am growing fat and tired from sitting at a desk all day, all week. i love school, where i can bike to class.\noh, i lied, there\u0026rsquo;s more:\n10. i bought a bunch of cds. soon i will update the sidebar with the info, so stay tuned! bye! and leave me comments, i love you guys. of course now you know i am somewhat of a liar\u0026hellip;and doubly so, because i have another list item:\n11. tyson vozza came to visit me yesterday in orlando! well he didn\u0026rsquo;t come because of me but he was here so we hung out and saw pirates of the caribbean. not a bad flick at all. anyway it was the first time any stanford friend has ever visited me in orlando, so it was a bit weird but cool.\nrock.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/what-ive-been-doing-since-japan/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ein roughly chronological order:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. i got a new electric guitar! it\u0026rsquo;s a carlo robelli ush-500hb, and it is beautiful and cool. (and, i will be using it to play the first splendour hyaline show ever, tomorrow night!)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2. i started playing ultimate frisbee again. dav and i have been going out sunday afternoons to a place in lake nona. it\u0026rsquo;s good to run around and throw the disc, and occasionally make a spectacular play. competition is always pretty good!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"what i've been doing since japan"},{"content":"sunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. aiko fukuda, sans takashi (who was gone on a business trip), took us to their church, a small but beautifull built church within walking distance. we sat through the service, not really comprehending much of anything, until an american missionary working there came over and started interpreting for us. after the message (which was surprisingly original and something i wish i remembered now\u0026hellip;), my dad actually got up in front of the church and talked about why he was involved with wycliffe bible translators (they all knew takashi was), and how just about anybody with any skillset can take part in the work. after that we had lunch at the church, where i met several younger people, all girls, between the ages of 18-24. i answered their questions when i could understand what they were asking, and had a pretty good time. although, they all liked to giggle a lot. after that, i was invited by several people to \u0026ldquo;sports day\u0026rdquo;, which is primarily for younger kids through high-school-aged kids. since i had nothing else to do, i went with them to a gym for the afternoon, where kids of all ages were divided up into two teams, and where we played vicious rounds of volleyball, dodgeball, soccer, and aerobic dance (yeah, you should have seen that last one).\ni made friends with another 20 year old guy named take, and a german missionary who spoke english and japanese named tobias, and our soccer team dominated. i will confess, however, to quite shameful performance at dodgeball (they play a rather different style of it, which involves much more strategy than i remember).\nthat night was sushi dinner with aiko fukuda and her mother-in-law, and it was fabulous. here are some pictures: [ plates of sushi, oh how good!] [ \u0026ldquo;unagi\u0026rdquo; over rice (eel). it was amazing] [ my dad and i with aiko and her mother-in-law].\nand with that, our time at the fukudas had drawn to a close. on monday, the next day, the plan was to do a little more touring around the city, then to go to a hotel near narita, which we had got reservations at before talking with the fukudas, where we would spend monday night. tuesday we were to leave for the states!\nand all did go pretty much according to plan: on monday we toured around a different part of town: asakusa, an older and more formal area. kazu was once again our guide, along with his girlfriend and her friend, both from the east coast of the states. it was fun to have some more americans around to talk to. the most memorable event of the day was visiting the senso-ji shrine, the largest buddhist temple in tokyo, i believe. here are the accompanying pictures: [ lantern gate] [ view of another tower] [ same tower from another angle] [ my dad and i in front of the lantern gate thing]. there was also a pretty huge market leading up to the temple: [ market by senso-ji]. after hanging out around the temple for a while, we got some lunch at a ramen bar, and we all had a fun conversation amid the slurping of giant noodles.\nthen, it was time for us to take leave of kazu \u0026amp; co. so we headed back to tokyo station via the subway and metro [ metro station] [ subway station]. from there we took the narita express, a fast train from tokyo to narita, which beats the limousine bus service any day. we got to the airport and took a free shuttle to the holiday inn hotel where we were to stay that night.\nfrom then on things moved much more slowly and relaxed: we had a quiet dinner at the hotel restaurant that night, i took a long bath and read, and we watched CNN. boring, yes, but it was nice to slow down some. the next day, tuesday, was our last day in japan. we got to the airport 4 or 5 hours before our flight, and went to the admiral\u0026rsquo;s club. there i started reading a book series i had brought, consisting of the riddle-master of head, heir of sea and fire, and the harpist in the wind, all by patricia mckillip. i\u0026rsquo;d read it before, but i was struck again by what a fantastic story it is, and i ultimately finished all three books before landing in san jose. also, in the admiral\u0026rsquo;s club, i had a few jack and cokes, toying with the idea of trying to match Jonathan\u0026rsquo;s Day of Most Alcohol ConsumptionTM. i also took a picture of the 777 which turned out to be our bird to san jose: [ american airlines\u0026rsquo; flagship].\nsooner or later we got on our flight to san jose, and absolutely nothing interesting happened on it. i read non-stop, as i mentioned before, and finished the trilogy i had started. i didn\u0026rsquo;t end up drinking a lot; for whatever reason i guess i didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like ingesting a conintuous stream of wine. we arrived at san jose something like 5 hours before we left (go back a few posts to my itinerary, if you want), and hung out at the admiral\u0026rsquo;s club there before our next flight, which was late. it left eventually (which is more than you can say for some flights!), and we got to dallas no problem. we paid our respects to dfw\u0026rsquo;s admiral\u0026rsquo;s club also before our flight to orlando. i mostly just sat and thought about the trip, since i was too tired to do much else. but in order to fight of jet lag i didn\u0026rsquo;t sleep on the flight to orlando, either: it, like the rest, was without event and we sailed smoothly in tuesday night.\nit was a real adventure, i think, full of physical and mental and spiritual challenges to overcome. more important than that, though, i became rather enchanted with japan and japanese culture. i would definitely love to go back, spend a year or two there, and learn japanese. i would love to talk to japanese people, with their emphasis on personal respect (something that has not only gone down the tube in america, it has completely left the tube), their reserved nature, and their hard-working minds and hands. but the future\u0026ndash;who knows. i doubt that i will ever love one place enough to settle there when there are so many places that i\u0026rsquo;ve not yet visited, so many languages left unsampled\u0026hellip;it is overwhelming sometimes, but i guess that\u0026rsquo;s just what happens when you have, as a personal goal, to know everything and be able to speak to everyone in the world.\nfor now, i am just happy to have been able to spend a week there, in a real house with real japanese people, and not stuck in a cramped high-rise hotel afraid to dive into the differences below. and, i am happy to have been able to spend a week with my dad, for the time was precious, and the memories it created will be even more precious the further back they point, like a map to better times.\nthe end.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-ix-the-trip-winds-to-an-end/","summary":"\u003cp\u003esunday morning we woke up and got ready to go to church. aiko fukuda, sans takashi (who was gone on a business trip), took us to their church, a small but beautifull built church within walking distance. we sat through the service, not really comprehending much of anything, until an american missionary working there came over and started interpreting for us. after the message (which was surprisingly original and something i wish i remembered now\u0026hellip;), my dad actually got up in front of the church and talked about why he was involved with wycliffe bible translators (they all knew takashi was), and how just about anybody with any skillset can take part in the work. after that we had lunch at the church, where i met several younger people, all girls, between the ages of 18-24. i answered their questions when i could understand what they were asking, and had a pretty good time. although, they all liked to giggle a lot. after that, i was invited by several people to \u0026ldquo;sports day\u0026rdquo;, which is primarily for younger kids through high-school-aged kids. since i had nothing else to do, i went with them to a gym for the afternoon, where kids of all ages were divided up into two teams, and where we played vicious rounds of volleyball, dodgeball, soccer, and aerobic dance (yeah, you should have seen that last one).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part ix: the trip winds to an end"},{"content":"as it turned out, we had made it up in 5:15, which wasn\u0026rsquo;t all that horrible! we rested a little bit but not for long because the cold was being blasted through our clothing by the strong wind. so we started the long descent. it felt a lot faster (and was, of course) than the ascent, and we practically zoomed by places that had been particularly hard on the way up. of course, the going was hard on the old knees, and we had to rest occasionally just so all our joints wouldn\u0026rsquo;t give out. but, it was much nicer than going up, and i was able to do some jogging now and then to get the blood flowing and muscles moving.\nwe made it down in about 2:45, and on the way i took these beautiful pictures at sunset: [ view of valley below] [ clouds rolling in the hills below] [ the shadow of mt. fuji on the clouds]\nso, we got back to the 5th station a little after 7pm. we had done it! we were extremely tired, but excited. the plan was now for renee and sue to drive my dad and me to fujiyoshida station so we could catch the 7:57 bus back to tokyo (this was, of course, the last bus of the day). we stopped at the convenience store at 5th station to get a drink and ask if perhaps there were any trains that left instead of buses, when we found out two very disturbing pieces of news: (1) there was a gate on the road down from 5th station to the base of the mountain, and (2) the gate closes daily at 7pm. we checked our watches: 7:05pm. oh no! we ran to their car and sped off down the mountain road to get to the gate and hope it wasn\u0026rsquo;t closed.\nit was practically dark now, and the road down was long and windy (it now seemed much longer than it did when coming up, even though we were going faster, since none of us wanted to be stuck on mt. fuji for the night, what with it being out of season and there being no accomodations anywhere). on two occasions we almost ran over something in the road: the first was a deer (which i saw and yelled \u0026ldquo;stop!\u0026rdquo; in as curt and commanding a voice as i could muster without accidentally causing sue, the driver, to have a non-deer-related accident. thankfully, she jammed on the brakes, only then seeing the deer. i shudder to think what would have happened it i hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen it). the second was a cone (which i saw again and yelled \u0026ldquo;cone!\u0026rdquo;).\nanyhow, we eventually made it to the gate, at around 7:40pm, and it was definitely closed. it was a big metal affair, padlocked securely with no hope of breaking it open. so, my dad and i got out of the car, slid under the gate, and walked down to a guardhouse, hoping that someone might still be there. as it turned out, there were still some workers there having their dinner, and with hand signs and short, one-word sentences, we were able to let them know that our car was on the wrong side of the gate. they were only too happy to get the key and unlock it for us, no doubt not wanting 4 gaijin wandering about on their mountain any more than we wanted to be there sleeping in the car all night.\nour adventure was not over yet, however! we realized as we left the foot of mt. fuji that none of us had any idea where fujiyoshida station was\u0026hellip;we had been driven from there by mrs. takahashi, and we had even got lost on the way up with her. so we just drove wherever we thought looked best, going somewhat the right direction, but losing hope all the same. sooner or later the clock turned to 7:55 and we knew that we\u0026rsquo;d never be able to catch the bus back to tokyo. we were resigned to finding an expensive hotel (they\u0026rsquo;re all expensive in japan) somewhere in the area and then heading back to tokyo the next day (which would also have the effect of causing the fukudas to believe that we\u0026rsquo;d died, certainly). but just then, we drove by a hotel which i recognized, and which had its own amusement park\u0026hellip;i saw a sign which read \u0026ldquo;fujikyu highlands\u0026rdquo;, and then i remembered! our bus had stopped there, 2 or 3 stops before fujiyoshida, on the way in that morning! so, if we had any luck at all, we would be able to catch the 7:57 bus from fujiyoshida station as it made its way back to tokyo, since it was 8:00pm and the bus could not have got to fujikyu highlands yet! we pulled into the parking lot and talked to the station manager who was just leaving, but affirmed that, yes, the bus to tokyo was going to stop there, and that it left at 8:04pm.\nyes! my dad and i rejoiced that we\u0026rsquo;d be able to get back despite getting lost. we thanked god once again for orchestrating events to our benefit. and we thanked our friends renee and sue for breaking a number of traffic laws, trying to get us to the bus on time. we said our goodbyes to them, and then a few minutes later got on the bus back to shinjuku station in tokyo. from there we took the metro back to soshigaya, and walked, tired, sore, and covered in volcanic dust, back into the fukudas house.\nafter assuring the fukudas that we were ok and had made it to the top (they were impressed), we went immediately to bed. and i dreamed happily of the beauty and power that god put into creation.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-vii-the-mountain-didnt-kill-us-but/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eas it turned out, we had made it up in 5:15, which wasn\u0026rsquo;t all that horrible! we rested a little bit but not for long because the cold was being blasted through our clothing by the strong wind. so we started the long descent. it felt a lot faster (and was, of course) than the ascent, and we practically zoomed by places that had been particularly hard on the way up. of course, the going was hard on the old knees, and we had to rest occasionally just so all our joints wouldn\u0026rsquo;t give out. but, it was much nicer than going up, and i was able to do some jogging now and then to get the blood flowing and muscles moving.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part vii: the mountain didn't kill us, but..."},{"content":"for me, the rest of the trip (the 21 - 24 of june) was somewhat lost in the shadow of mt. fuji, and the length of the description of this might lend itself to that interpretation as well. however, there were a lot of things worth mentioning about it, and i\u0026rsquo;d say that most of my cultural experiences and philosophical thoughts about japan and japanese culture happened in that time.\non saturday, my dad and i took a bus to shibuya, a younger, hip, shopping and music district of tokyo. there we met a young man named kazu, the nephew of aiko fukuda, who is from japan but is finishing up his theology master\u0026rsquo;s degree in the states (so he has excellent english). we had been able to persuade him over the phone to give us a tour, and that he did. we spent much of the day wandering around shibuya, doing a few touristy things and going to a few touristy shops (in one of which, miraculously, we met michael, our mt. fuji bus friend! that\u0026rsquo;s three random running-intos, which made me wonder if something was going on \u0026ldquo;upstairs\u0026rdquo;. but nothing came of it, really). we also visited the meiji shrine, a shinto temple in which is enshrined the emperor meiji (and i forgot the history of it by now, of course, though kazu was a veritable fount of knowledge concerning it). here are some pictures: [ a few sake barrels in an enormous mosaic, donated by various companies to the shrine] [ a procession of shinto priests and priestesses in the temple courtyard]. none of my pictures of the temple itself turned out that great\u0026hellip;\nthat afternoon we also went to another part of town east of shibuya, where we went to a five-start hotel to look at some art. there was a wedding going on, so we weren\u0026rsquo;t allowed into some places, but they did let us see some banquet rooms, with gorgeous art all over the walls and ceilings [ meguro gajoen hotel banquet room]. this hotel is probably the nicest i\u0026rsquo;ve ever set foot in. here\u0026rsquo;s an example of how classy it was: the men\u0026rsquo;s restroom had a fountain and natural-looking stream with koi and rocks and plants in it, nice dark wood and bamboo, tasteful plants, black marble sinks and floor, and the list goes on. i should have taken a picture of it!\noutside the hotel were two little shrines, one of which is buddhist for sure, and the other one of which i\u0026rsquo;m not exactly sure about. here are the pictures: [ shrine 1] [ shrine 2].\nafter the hotel, we three went to a great little tempura bar in another area of town, and had probably the best meal i ever ate in japan. they killed and cooked and fried all the food right in front of you, and gave you a huge variety of all kinds of things. it was fascinating. ah.\nanyway, we said our goodbyes to kazu and went back to the fukudas to sleep.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-viii-saturday/","summary":"\u003cp\u003efor me, the rest of the trip (the 21 - 24 of june) was somewhat lost in the shadow of mt. fuji, and the length of the description of this might lend itself to that interpretation as well. however, there were a lot of things worth mentioning about it, and i\u0026rsquo;d say that most of my cultural experiences and philosophical thoughts about japan and japanese culture happened in that time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part viii: saturday"},{"content":"we kept a better pace all the way up the first round of switchbacks up to the 7th station, where we lunched on trail mix and had a rest. there i took this picture of the next leg of the journey: [ up from 7th station]. you\u0026rsquo;ll notice that the terrain changes a bit there from volcanic scree to large, clumpy conglomerates of rock which one had to climb over. that was definitely my favorite part of the climb: some 4th-class scrambling over really interesting rock formations. and, since i could now use my hands and arm muscles, my feet got a bit of a break. i found myself getting way too far ahead of the other three, however, and decided to slow down. it was at that point that the wind begain getting pretty bad. it was sustained, as i said, but the gusts were what really took us by surprise. if you weren\u0026rsquo;t holding on to something when they hit, you were easily blown off your feet. and, the wind carried with it tons of little dust particles and rocks which did there best to scrape the skin off our faces.\neventually we got through the scrambling part and made it to the 8th station (i don\u0026rsquo;t think i mentioned this, by the way, but there are 10 stations, and the 10th is at the summit. the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th are all fairly close, and then there\u0026rsquo;s quite a ways between the 8th, 9th, and 10th). [ my dad and i at the 8th station]. after the 8th station there was a little more scrambling over the big odd-shaped rocks [ side view of volcanic scree and rocky path], and then it turned into more crappy terrain and steep switchbacks.\nfrom there it was pretty sustained until the top: sliding terrain, super-steep paths, harmful wind, and a beating sun that burned my neck horribly, though i didn\u0026rsquo;t realize it till later because the temperatures had quickly dropped into the upper 40s. i had given my dad his backpack back for the scrambling part of the climb, because i couldn\u0026rsquo;t do it with a pack on my stomach. soon i had to take it back because the steepness and the altitude were getting to him (i was starting to feel shorter of breath as well\u0026ndash;we were probably at 10,000 ft. now). i took this picture, off to the right of the path, where you can see huge ice patches still there despite the sun (and i wondered what it would be like to slide down it!): [ ice patches].\nwhat felt like hours later we reached the 9th station, or thereabouts, and encountered michael, from the bus! he was on his way down, in shorts and a light sweater. he told us that he\u0026rsquo;d made it to the top in about 2:45, which was phenomenal. i was a little jealous that he\u0026rsquo;d had no companions to slow his progress, but then was immediately ashamed, since the whole ordeal was very much a father-son thing for me, and i wanted both me and my dad to make it to the top (which was why i had been carrying my dad\u0026rsquo;s pack of course\u0026ndash;he\u0026rsquo;d suggested that i go on ahead and he could wait for me to come back down, but i would have none of that!). anyway, he warned us of the winds at the top and then kept jogging back down.\nfinally, not too long after that, we caught a glimpse of the wooden shinto gate that marked the entrance to the 10th station, a few hundred feet above us. then, we knew that we would be able to make it. and, a long time later (having to stand still and take cover with the howling wind, we were not moving very fast), we were there! [ shinto shrine gate and lions at 10th station entrance]. and once through the gates, we crested the lip of the crater and were able to see the inside of mt. fuji. the winds were phenomenally powerful (around 100mph, we estimated), and we had to keep low to the ground in order not to be blown off our feet. we had a thermometer, and it was in the 30s, so very cold! [ my dad and i with crater in the background].\ni took a short video with my digital camera at the top, showing that we had actually made it. it\u0026rsquo;s a little big (5mb), but you can download it here: [ video from the top]\nalso, i took a panorama shot from the top, which is kind of hazy because of the wind and elevation, but here it is: [ panorama from the top]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-vi-the-roof-of-the-worldalmost/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewe kept a better pace all the way up the first round of switchbacks up to the 7th station, where we lunched on trail mix and had a rest. there i took this picture of the next leg of the journey: [ \u003ca href=\"photos/fuji-_looking_up_from_7th_station.jpg\"\u003eup from 7th station\u003c/a\u003e]. you\u0026rsquo;ll notice that the terrain changes a bit there from volcanic scree to large, clumpy conglomerates of rock which one had to climb over. that was definitely my favorite part of the climb: some 4th-class scrambling over really interesting rock formations. and, since i could now use my hands and arm muscles, my feet got a bit of a break. i found myself getting way too far ahead of the other three, however, and decided to slow down. it was at that point that the wind begain getting pretty bad. it was sustained, as i said, but the gusts were what really took us by surprise. if you weren\u0026rsquo;t holding on to something when they hit, you were easily blown off your feet. and, the wind carried with it tons of little dust particles and rocks which did there best to scrape the skin off our faces.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part vi: the roof of the world...almost"},{"content":"the drive to 5th station took longer than expected, but at the end of it we found ourselves getting out of mrs. takahashi\u0026rsquo;s car at an elevation of about 5,600 ft. at this height and because of the situation of the 5th station, the wind was a constant, deafening roar, with gusts that made it hard to stand even on flat cement. my dad and i worried about this momentarily, wondering how much worse it would be on the tricky upper slopes, but put it out of our minds. and, so as not to lose time, we had a quick prayer with mrs. takahashi for safety, and said our thank-yous and goodbyes. then we cinched up all our straps, configured our hydration packs for hiking, and set off on the trail. despite the wind, it was a sunny 80 degrees at the 5th station (much better than the balmy and sweaty 95 of tokyo), the trail was not to steep, and life was good! around then i noticed an interesting atmospheric oddity\u0026ndash;a little cyclonic type cloud formation that hovered a certain distance off fuji, and just kept rotating and rotating. here\u0026rsquo;s a picture: [ our cyclonic friend]. that cloud formation stayed there for just about the entire duration of our extent, rotating happily, and i can\u0026rsquo;t figure out why it was there. anyway.\nsoon enough, however, the going got fairly steep (we thought, but little did we know it was practically flat compared to what was to come), and we got mired in problems. my dad, jogger extroardinaire though he is, was having trouble with the intense cardiovascular nature of the climb. thus, we had to rest frequently, and my hopes of getting anywhere near the summit before we had to turn around to catch the bus began to diminish steadily. still, we made it to the 6th station alright, and, trying not to look up and see the vertical mile we still had to go, pressed on. shortly after that, i took this picture, wherein you can get an idea of how far we had to go (you can also notice the swirling clouds at the top and the ice patches still left even in summer): [ don\u0026rsquo;t look up].\nthen began the Switchbacks of Death, as i like to call them. hundreds and hundreds of switchbacks, each fairly short, but extremely steep, and consisting of volcanic gravel that was extremely hard to gain purchase in. it wasn\u0026rsquo;t so much hiking anymore as slogging through shifting rock. my dad was still having some trouble tiring out quickly after each rest, so we were stopping more often and longer than i liked\u0026ndash;at each switchback practically. so, since i was feeling alright, and as if i could run up the mountain if i wanted, i took my dad\u0026rsquo;s pack and carried it on my stomach. the combined weight of his and my packs was probably around 50 lbs (8 liters of water is heavy, and i had all my cooking gear\u0026ndash;stove, 2 pots, food, though i was never able to get the fuel tank filled. so it was a lot of useless and dead weight). needless to say, this evened the playing field a little bit: i stopped getting so far ahead and my dad stopped to rest less often.\nhowever, i had already settled on not making it to the top, since at the rate we were going, we were going to take at least 6 hours up. then, when i had lost all hope, two americans caught up to us from behind (which was odd, because so far we hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen anyone else on the mountain\u0026ndash;it was fantastic! a beautiful day, and no one in sight!). their names were renee and sue, and they were wives of americans working in tokyo. we got to talking, and soon realized what a blessing it was that we had met each other. they had been wanting someone to climb with, and also they had not brought much food or water. more importantly, they had brought a car to the 5th station. my dad and i, of course, had plenty of water, having brought some for cooking that we would no longer need. we also had an entire 5lb bag of kirkland\u0026rsquo;s signature trail mix, and all sorts of other useful hiking gear (first aid kit, moleskin, etc). so we decided that we would all go up together, and that way they would have food and water, and we would have a ride back to the main bus station at fujiyoshida! it almost felt as if god had been steadily increasing the possibility of our being able to climb up to the top, from getting us a ride to the 5th station, to sending two people who could help us and whom we could help.\nanyway, that renewed my spirits quite a bit, and i trotted up with hope, still carrying my dad\u0026rsquo;s backpack. our joining the two ladies also had a positive impact on my dad, maybe because they were around 40 and he didn\u0026rsquo;t want to be shown up by women not much younger than him. at any rate they were better at encouraging him and each other than i was (all i had been able to manage was \u0026ldquo;come on, dad! your body can do this, you just have to keep a sustained pace and not give in to the pain\u0026rdquo;, which i guess wasn\u0026rsquo;t very helpful).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-v-beginning-the-ascent/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe drive to 5th station took longer than expected, but at the end of it we found ourselves getting out of mrs. takahashi\u0026rsquo;s car at an elevation of about 5,600 ft. at this height and because of the situation of the 5th station, the wind was a constant, deafening roar, with gusts that made it hard to stand even on flat cement. my dad and i worried about this momentarily, wondering how much worse it would be on the tricky upper slopes, but put it out of our minds. and, so as not to lose time, we had a quick prayer with mrs. takahashi for safety, and said our thank-yous and goodbyes. then we cinched up all our straps, configured our hydration packs for hiking, and set off on the trail. despite the wind, it was a sunny 80 degrees at the 5th station (much better than the balmy and sweaty 95 of tokyo), the trail was not to steep, and life was good! around then i noticed an interesting atmospheric oddity\u0026ndash;a little cyclonic type cloud formation that hovered a certain distance off fuji, and just kept rotating and rotating. here\u0026rsquo;s a picture: [ \u003ca href=\"photos/cyclonic_clouds_off_fuji.jpg\"\u003eour cyclonic friend\u003c/a\u003e]. that cloud formation stayed there for just about the entire duration of our extent, rotating happily, and i can\u0026rsquo;t figure out why it was there. anyway.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part v: beginning the ascent"},{"content":"the next day, friday, was another early morning. we caught our bus at shinjuku at 7am and settled in for the 2-hour ride. on the trip we made friends with a canadian guy named michael, who was planning on climbing the mountain that day. he told us of an american he met in the tokyo streets who\u0026rsquo;d done it about a week previously, and who had said it was certainly doable. in fact, this american had made it up the mountain in 3 hours (much less than the average 5.5 - 6 up), and had not, of course, been eaten by the forest, fallen hundreds of feet down ice cracks, or been blown off the mountain by winds. this report confirmed my suspicions that the mountain wasn\u0026rsquo;t all that bad, and made my dad more willing to try for the summit if we got the opportunity. the rest of the ride we talked to michael about various things and had a decent time in the cramped seats. i also got this picture of fuji from the bus, unfortunately the only one of the whole mountain, since it was dark when we were again far enough away to see the whole thing: [ view of fuji from bus window]. as you can see, there was a layer of clouds covering the top of the mountain. what you can\u0026rsquo;t see is that these clouds were swirling very visbly around the mountain, like a miniature hurricane. and they were going fast. it was actually quite unreal, and made me wonder what it would feel like on the summit, in those winds and clouds, if we tried for it.\nin talking with michael, we also discovered that there was a bus from the 5th station back down to fujiyoshida, so that, if we were to try hiking the mountain, we could get back to tokyo on our own (one of the logistical problems we faced had been getting down from the mountain, even if we could convince the takahashis to drive us to the 5th station. we were under the impression that no buses or taxis ran from the 5th station back down to the fujiyoshida station out of season). unfortunately, the last bus down from 5th station (5th station, remember, is about halfway, elevation-wise, up the 12,376 ft. mountain, and it is where the summit hike begins. you can drive up to it.), we were told, was at 4pm. we figured that the soonest we could start climbing was probably 10am, and if we wanted to catch the bus we\u0026rsquo;d have to go up and down in no more than 6 hours. seeing as the average up-hike alone takes 6 hours, my dad was doubtful that we could possibly make the last bus. i was game for trying anyway.\nthe bus ride ended soon enough, and we met mr. takahashi and his wife and fujiyoshida station. there we tried our best, standing in the wind which was abnormally strong even at the foot of the mountain, to persuade them to take us to the 5th station and then let us climb up the mountain. eventually, after showing them that we were well supplied with gear, food, and clothing, they acquiesced, and my heart rejoiced! it didn\u0026rsquo;t rejoice too quickly, however, because my dad reminded me that we\u0026rsquo;d need to be down by 4pm, whether we had summited or not, to catch the last bus back to fujiyoshida (so we could get back to tokyo). i agreed, and settled for going as far up as possible.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-iv-the-road-to-mt-fuji/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe next day, friday, was another early morning. we caught our bus at shinjuku at 7am and settled in for the 2-hour ride. on the trip we made friends with a canadian guy named michael, who was planning on climbing the mountain that day. he told us of an american he met in the tokyo streets who\u0026rsquo;d done it about a week previously, and who had said it was certainly doable. in fact, this american had made it up the mountain in 3 hours (much less than the average 5.5 - 6 up), and had not, of course, been eaten by the forest, fallen hundreds of feet down ice cracks, or been blown off the mountain by winds. this report confirmed my suspicions that the mountain wasn\u0026rsquo;t \u003cem\u003eall that\u003c/em\u003e bad, and made my dad more willing to try for the summit if we got the opportunity. the rest of the ride we talked to michael about various things and had a decent time in the cramped seats. i also got this picture of fuji from the bus, unfortunately the only one of the whole mountain, since it was dark when we were again far enough away to see the whole thing: [ \u003ca href=\"photos/mt_fuji_from_bus.jpg\"\u003eview of fuji from bus window\u003c/a\u003e]. as you can see, there was a layer of clouds covering the top of the mountain. what you can\u0026rsquo;t see is that these clouds were swirling very visbly around the mountain, like a miniature hurricane. and they were going \u003cem\u003efast\u003c/em\u003e. it was actually quite unreal, and made me wonder what it would feel like on the summit, in those winds and clouds, if we tried for it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part iv: the road to mt. fuji"},{"content":"we generally ate our dinners with the fukudas and takashi\u0026rsquo;s mother at her place. every meal was an adventure, as any number of unfamiliar items were continually placed in front of me. i ate everything, near enough, with a minimal of facial muscle distortion, and soon began to distinguish what sorts of things i liked and what i didn\u0026rsquo;t. japanese food is very good.\nthe first night there my dad and i went to bed early, due to jet lag, and woke up accordingly early on thursday morning. that day we went to work with takashi at the wycliffe center [ takashi and my dad on the way to the station to go to the center]. (i should actually put \u0026ldquo;center\u0026rdquo; in scare quotes, since it was a one-room office with a living quarters directly above). my dad wanted to see the office for obvious reasons, and i was excited to see how wycliffe was doing things in other parts of the world (it\u0026rsquo;s really a fascinating organization, with divisions in most of the world\u0026rsquo;s countries). there are 5 or 6 people that work in wycliffe japan, of which takashi is the director. we hung around the office for a bit, and i got to know some of the employees a bit. i also learned how to type japanese on a windows computer, which was, to say the least, fascinating. i really wish english had as interesting a writing system.\nmore began to unravel then in the mt. fuji debacle. takashi had asked a pastor friend of his (takahashi-san), if he wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind showing us around the base of mt. fuji. the plan was, my dad and i would take a bus on friday morning to fujiyoshida station, in a town at the base of the mountain, and mr. takahashi would meet us there. he would drive us in his car up to the 5th station of fuji (which is \u0026ldquo;open\u0026rdquo; all year round, and from which the traditional hike to the summit begins). that way, we would get as close as takashi wanted us to get, without attempting to do something as foolish as climb to the top. takashi and my dad (who had been somewhat wary of doing mt. fuji out of season in the first place, and who was probably wiser in me in that the many stories of people dying on the ascent made him take heed) cheered this plan as excellent, but to me it was the worst of all possible plans. i could think of nothing more unsatisfying than to drive to the base of the hike, look up to the top, and then turn around and head back, hearing, \u0026ldquo;now wasn\u0026rsquo;t that fun?\u0026rdquo; i was definitely in a conquering sort of mood, not a be-conquered sort of mood. but there was nothing i could really do except act disappointed, which i did in such a way so that my dad would get it and not takashi (i didn\u0026rsquo;t want to offend our host).\nanyway, after that, takashi conscripted the wycliffe secretary there, misao, to take us on a tour of the shinjuku area, which she did [ shinjuku 1] [ shinjuku 2]. we visited the bus station to get our tickets to fujiyoshida, and went to a christian bookstore in the area, where i picked up a very nice japanese bible, written in furigana (kanji with the hiragana readings). then we took leave of misao, caught a train from shinjuku to soshigaya-okura, and walked the mile or two back to the fukudas, where we arrived just in time for dinner!\nmy dad and i talked before going to bed that night about the fuji situation. he understood my disappointment and said he wanted to climb himself. one way or another i convinced him that we should bring all our gear in our packs the next day to fuji, just in case we could get the takahashi\u0026rsquo;s to give us leave to climb the mountain. he agreed, and so we filled our hiking packs with 4 liters of water each, tons of trail mix, my stove and fuel canister (empty at the moment), warm clothes to combat the near-freezing temperatures if we should reach the summit, and various other necessities. then we slept, and i dreamed of standing happily on the crater of the volcano i so wished to defeat.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-iii-day-one/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewe generally ate our dinners with the fukudas and takashi\u0026rsquo;s mother at her place. every meal was an adventure, as any number of unfamiliar items were continually placed in front of me. i ate everything, near enough, with a minimal of facial muscle distortion, and soon began to distinguish what sorts of things i liked and what i didn\u0026rsquo;t. japanese food is very good.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe first night there my dad and i went to bed early, due to jet lag, and woke up accordingly early on thursday morning. that day we went to work with takashi at the wycliffe center [ \u003ca href=\"photos/takashi_and_dad_to_station.jpg\"\u003etakashi and my dad on the way to the station to go to the center\u003c/a\u003e]. (i should actually put \u0026ldquo;center\u0026rdquo; in scare quotes, since it was a one-room office with a living quarters directly above). my dad wanted to see the office for obvious reasons, and i was excited to see how wycliffe was doing things in other parts of the world (it\u0026rsquo;s really a fascinating organization, with divisions in most of the world\u0026rsquo;s countries). there are 5 or 6 people that work in wycliffe japan, of which takashi is the director. we hung around the office for a bit, and i got to know some of the employees a bit. i also learned how to type japanese on a windows computer, which was, to say the least, fascinating. i really wish english had as interesting a writing system.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part iii: day one"},{"content":"as i said, we got up early on tuesday. the sun was just beginning to rise in florida, [ sunrise from my driveway] and we drove to the airport. i was looking forward to the flying to japan possibly more than the being there, because we were flying first class on all our domestic flights and business class on our international legs. you see, my dad is executive platinum with american airlines (i happen to be platinum, myself), and so every year he gets a number of free class-of-service upgrade coupons. we were able to use some of these, and let me tell you: flying business class internationally is about 75 billion times as good as flying coach. but we\u0026rsquo;ll get to that later.\nour itinerary took us to chicago, where we would catch our non-stop bird to tokyo. there (once again because of my dad\u0026rsquo;s status) we were able to use the international first class lounge (a step above the admiral\u0026rsquo;s club, even), which was absolutely fantastic. we had a half an our to kill before our flight, so i went ahead and started Jonathan\u0026rsquo;s Day of Most Alcohol ConsumptionTM. drinks were free in the lounge, so i kicked things off with a cranberry and vodka, i believe. then we took leave of the smallish high-rolling lounge and made our way to the plane. once boarded and settled happily in business class (where i couldn\u0026rsquo;t even touch the seat in front of me with my feet no matter how hard i tried), i availed myself of one, then two, glasses of champagne from the helpful flight attendant (drinks are free in business class, too). after takeoff things really get going in business class, with drinks, then the international flagship dinner, then a lunch before landing. i think i had two or three glasses of wine before dinner, which (at my choice) was a traditional japanese-style meal, with sushi appetizers and all sorts odd-looking things in a box for the main course. it was very good. with dinner i had a few more glasses of the white chablis. for dessert i switched to a graham\u0026rsquo;s port wine, which complemented my chocolate mousse-ish-cum-cheesecake thing very nicely.\nbefore lunch was the japanese snack, consisting of soba noodles. at that point i decided to try something new and ordered some chilled sake. no good\u0026ndash;i am not a fan.\nthen were the long hours of the flight, of which i slept a few, but spent most of which reading my japanese book. thus i whiled away the time until lunch, with the help of a few jack and cokes. lunch was pizza, so i had to switch to the french red wine they were offering. after two glasses of that, i was happily satisfied until landing. thus ended Jonathan\u0026rsquo;s Day of Most Alcohol ConsumptionTM. of course, as you\u0026rsquo;d imagine, i was up and down going to the lavatory almost constantly. oddly, though, i never felt particularly buzzed.\nwe landed something like a day and a half later, on the 18th, in tokyo (the whole crossing the international date line thing, remember!), at 2pm. we changed some cash and ordered bus tickets from narita to shinjuku. we didn\u0026rsquo;t know it then, but shinjuku is one of a few \u0026ldquo;downtown\u0026rdquo; areas in tokyo. it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty big transportation hub and shopping area. anyway, 2 hours on the bus later (narita is far from tokyo proper), we got to shinjuku. we fiddled around with the phones for a bit, trying to figure them out, until a lady was nice enough to let us use her phone card, with which we called takashi fukuda at whose house we planned to stay for much of the week. takashi and his wife aiko work for wycliffe bible translators japan. since my dad is legal counsel for wycliffe usa and wycliffe international, he and takashi had known each other for a while. i myself had met takashi a few years back when he came to urbana with wycliffe.\ntakashi met us at the station and called a taxi to take us all back to his place. on the drive we began to get to know each other, and soon enough the topic of mt. fuji arose. you see, we had expressed our desire to climb mt. fuji with takashi during the e-mail exchanges of the previous week (wherein we planned on staying with him), but the response from takashi was, in possibly typical japanese fashion, \u0026ldquo;no, the mountain is closed. you cannot climb now\u0026rdquo;. out of respect, we pushed the matter no further, and for the moment accepted his advice on the issue. i was decidedly disappointed, however. i knew that we could climb it, and while i appreciated takashi\u0026rsquo;s care, i hated that our reliance on him might mean we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to climb the mountain (you see, we had no idea how even to get to fuji, and even if we could find public transportation there, we\u0026rsquo;d have no way to get back without a car, since trains stop running fairly early). we asked discreetly a few more times that night, but the answer always came back, \u0026ldquo;no\u0026rdquo;, meaning, \u0026ldquo;crazy americans. of course you can\u0026rsquo;t climb when the mountain is closed!\u0026rdquo; apparently some canadian missionaries from a friend of takashi\u0026rsquo;s church had attempted to climb out of season once, and had got lost in the forest surrounding fuji and had died, which probably explained takashi\u0026rsquo;s reluctance. all the same, i was feeling rebellious. but soon enough the taxi arrived at the fukuda\u0026rsquo;s house\u0026hellip;\nthe fukudas live west of shinjuku (which is itself rather westerly compared to other things in tokyo), near the soshigaya-okura station of the metro. they have a two story house, which rather surprised me with its size, the number of amenities (you would not believe the number of electronic gadgets that were connected to their toilets!), and the overall niceness of it. you see, my impression of tokyo so far, from the bus ride, was that it was a sprawling metropolis, consisting entirely of old (but clean) buildings built in the reconstruction after wwii, having a rather bland and industrial feel throughout. i was mostly right, and i was even right in thinking that houses were extremely expensive (tokyo is one of the more expensive cities in the world), and that space is a truly coveted commodity. as it was, i had been preparing myself to be sharing a 10 by 10 cubicle with my dad in some nameless monolith of an apartment building. so the fact that we were in a suburb (bustling and crowded though it was), in a house separate from the surrounding buildings, with each a room to himself, a bathroom and shower close by, was a blissful wave of relief to me.\nhere are some pictures taken in the house: [ backyard garden] [ long exposure shot of the ceiling light in my room]\ntakashi\u0026rsquo;s mother, an old woman of 80 or so years, lives in a house facing the fukuda\u0026rsquo;s, so they actually spent most of their time over with her, leaving their house to myself and my dad to relax in. we were able to make ourselves breakfast and sit and watch japanese television. i played the yamaha grand piano they had, which was in excellent shape. playing it, i felt as if i were weaving a bubble of my culture and personality, slowly growing it in an unfamiliar environment. i forgot for a moment where i was and the strangeness of being in a strange place. i wondered if the neighbors had ever heard anything but scales and classical etudes drifting in through their windows, and i wondered how the average japanese musical gestalt would interpret the decidedly un-classical sorts of things i was creating.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/part-ii-traveling-first-impressions/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eas i said, we got up early on tuesday. the sun was just beginning to rise in florida, [ \u003ca href=\"photos/sunrise_at_house.jpg\"\u003esunrise from my driveway\u003c/a\u003e] and we drove to the airport. i was looking forward to the flying to japan possibly more than the being there, because we were flying first class on all our domestic flights and business class on our international legs. you see, my dad is executive platinum with american airlines (i happen to be platinum, myself), and so every year he gets a number of free class-of-service upgrade coupons. we were able to use some of these, and let me tell you: flying business class internationally is about 75 billion times as good as flying coach. but we\u0026rsquo;ll get to that later.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part ii: traveling, first impressions"},{"content":"note 1: i will include links to pictures throughout, enclosed by \u0026ldquo;[\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;]\u0026rdquo;. be sure to check these out for the full experience! note 2: this will be in nine(!) parts, because it is too long to post as one blogger entry (they must have put a new size limit in the new blogger version). but, i will post them backwards, so that part 1 appears first, and part 2 second, and part 3 third, and so on. in other words, read in the order they appear on the page. note 3: this will be very long. in fact, it is about 7800 words and took me upwards of 5 hours to write. but i haven\u0026rsquo;t made you read anything in a while anyway, so suck it up. and who knows, maybe it will actually be worth reading! part i: preparation\non tuesday, june 17th, i woke up early, because that was the day that my dad and i were going to leave for tokyo, japan. the fact that we were going to japan was cool enough, but even more exciting was how fast things had come together. you see, originally i had planned on bringing my beautiful little honda civic (name still pending\u0026hellip;i should have called her arwen but i foolishly named my new digital camera arwen instead, and once you have named something you can\u0026rsquo;t revoke the decision) home for the summer. i was going to do a cross-country road trip! of course, that plan fell through because it turned out to be hard to get someone to drive it with me. the next idea was to ship the car home, but that was going to cost in the neighborhood of $900.\nso, i decided that i would just leave the car in california, and find some other way to have an adventure before i started work for the summer. i called up my dad, since we like to go on international trips together, and we made a short list of about 5-10 interesting locations around the world. some other cities/countries on this list, besides tokyo, were moscow, hong kong, peru, new zealand, the cook islands, cameroon, and chile. as it turned out, when we began to price tickets, tokyo turned out to be a far better deal. you see, my dad and i are mile junkies, so the primary consideration for which trip made the most sense was, of course, the miles-per-dollar rating. tokyo\u0026rsquo;s rating was about 20 miles per dollar. which, if you fly very much, you know is pretty good. at any rate the whole trip would cost much less than shipping my car home, so we felt justified.\nanyway, we made the decision and bought our tickets right around the 1st of june, knowing nothing of japan or tokyo or japanese culture or anything. after that i began to research what i could on the internet, learned a smattering of japanese, went through all the .swfs on \u0026ldquo;how-to-bow.com\u0026rdquo;, and became enchanted with the idea of climbing mt. fuji. nothing looked so picturesque, mysterious, and yet eminently doable. to that end i read all sorts of guides to climbing the mountain, and other people\u0026rsquo;s accounts of doing the same. the exhortation from all these texts was: don\u0026rsquo;t underestimate the mountain. on top of that, i learned that the official climbing season for mt. fuji was july 1 through august 31 (weather, during other times of the year, is apparently extremely unpredictable and dangerous on the mountain). we, as you know, were going to be there during the third week in june, a week and a half before the mountain opened for season. of course, they don\u0026rsquo;t shut it down or anything (it being rather difficult in principle to shut down a mountain), but every website i visited said: \u0026ldquo;WARNING: do not climb out of season unless you are an experienced professional climber\u0026rdquo;.\ni was in a bit of a conundrum, then, because i didn\u0026rsquo;t want to do something stupid in the face of all the warnings (we\u0026rsquo;ve all heard stories where people die that way), and yet i strongly believed that these websites were exaggerating a little, most likely to save themselves from lawsuits and such. two other factors increased my resolve to climb anyway: (1) i had no idea if i would ever be able to visit japan again, and i wanted to climb mt. fuji, so my date options were limited to ones out of season, and (2) i had read that, in season, the mountain was so crowded, especially on the opening days, that in climbing it you were trudging in a line of thousands and thousands of people. that was not my idea of a fun outing with a natural colossus, to have the noise of thousands of people whining about their blisters following me up the mountain.\nso i did what any good outdoorsman should do: bought gear! i won\u0026rsquo;t go into it too much, but i got plenty of goodies that would enable my dad and i to eat several hearty meals at the high elevation in cold, stay warm, and basically healthy. a stove, headlamps, rain gear, 2 nalgenes + 2 hydration packs apiece\u0026hellip;i got us stocked!\nbut enough of mt. fuji for now.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/07/adventures-in-japan-pt-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003enote 1: i will include links to pictures throughout, enclosed by \u0026ldquo;[\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;]\u0026rdquo;. be sure to check these out for the full experience!\u003c/em\u003e \u003cem\u003enote 2: this will be in nine(!) parts, because it is too long to post as one blogger entry (they must have put a new size limit in the new blogger version). but, i will post them backwards, so that part 1 appears first, and part 2 second, and part 3 third, and so on. in other words, read in the order they appear on the page.\u003c/em\u003e \u003cem\u003enote 3: this will be very long. in fact, it is about 7800 words and took me upwards of 5 hours to write. but i haven\u0026rsquo;t made you read anything in a while anyway, so suck it up. and who knows, maybe it will actually be worth reading!\u003c/em\u003e \u003cstrong\u003epart i: preparation\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"adventures in japan, pt. i"},{"content":"i am alive! (all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding\u0026hellip;) and i am back from japan.\nit was a great trip, and i have great stories and great pictures to share. unfortunately, i took the latter half of last week to do just about everything except blog, and now i have started working full-time.\nstill, with japan and other recent events, so many exciting things are happening in my world at this time that i can\u0026rsquo;t afford to leave you out of the loop. look for some real posts soon, in which i will document all said awesomeness.\nps blogger has changed its look, and i\u0026rsquo;m not sure i like it. i may have to change to movable type\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/06/back-from-japan/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am alive! (all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding\u0026hellip;) and i am back from japan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eit was a great trip, and i have great stories and great pictures to share. unfortunately, i took the latter half of last week to do just about everything except blog, and now i have started working full-time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003estill, with japan and other recent events, so many exciting things are happening in my world at this time that i can\u0026rsquo;t afford to leave you out of the loop. look for some real posts soon, in which i will document all said awesomeness.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"back from japan"},{"content":"goodbye for 7 days! i will write after i return from japan.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/06/japan-2003/","summary":"\u003cp\u003egoodbye for 7 days! i will write after i return from japan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" src=\"photos/fuji.jpg\"\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"japan 2003"},{"content":"today i finished my last final paper for spring 2003. i\u0026rsquo;m free! until september.\nthus, i will now present to you my somewhat-ambitious reading list for the summer 2003, in no particular order:\n1. the chronicles of narnia, c.s. lewis. it\u0026rsquo;s been awhile since i\u0026rsquo;ve read these, and i picked up a beautifully illustrated hardback version.\n2. christianity and the nature of science, j.p. moreland. pretty decent phlosophy. i started this one last year sometime and it\u0026rsquo;s been collecting dust. time to put it to rest for good.\n3. the silmarillion, j.r.r. tolkien. i\u0026rsquo;ve read it 4 or 5 times, but just ordered a nice illustrated hardback version (i\u0026rsquo;m into those i guess) from bn.com. so i look forward to savoring it.\n4. no free lunch, william dembski. the follow-up to the design inference. an argument against certain forms of evolution, from information theory. pretty interesting.\n5. signs of intelligence, dembski et al. an easier-reading survey of the current trends in the intelligent design community. i\u0026rsquo;m a bit skeptical of this one but it\u0026rsquo;s short, so why not.\n6. god and other minds, alvin plantinga. top-notch philosophy from my current hero. plantinga is the man.\n7. the structure and interpretation of quantum mechanics, r.i. hughes. yep, it\u0026rsquo;s what it sounds like: a [hard] book on the philosophy of quantum mechanics. i couldn\u0026rsquo;t get enough in class, i guess.\n8. an introduction to mathematical logic, herbert enderton. this was my phil 160a textbook. i thought i\u0026rsquo;d pick it up again for a bit of light reading.\n9. ultimate japanese. we\u0026rsquo;ll see if i continue to study after my tokyo trip. japanese is fun.\n10. harry potter: the order of the phoenix, j.k. rowling. she is also the man (\u0026ldquo;the man\u0026rdquo;, you know, like\u0026hellip;authoritarian society\u0026hellip;or something). harry potter is cool.\n11. the spanish new testament, mostly paul. i\u0026rsquo;ve been reading this semi-consistently for about a year now. i want to finish it this summer. and move on to portuguese. or japanese if i can find a bible there, and get decent readability.\n12. how people grow, cloud \u0026amp; townsend. a christian book. it might be good, or it might not. i have heard good things about it. i will decide when i read it.\n13. the emergent church, some guy. about the postmodern church or something. which is so\u0026hellip;90s. haven\u0026rsquo;t you heard? post-modernism is out, man! the book is \u0026ldquo;required reading\u0026rdquo; for the leadership team of ccc. who knows, it might also be good!\ni\u0026rsquo;ll check in at the end of the summer and let you know how many of the books i actually read.\ni\u0026rsquo;m also planning, of course, on finally beating warcraft iii, a jewel of contemporary computer gaming, and enter the matrix, which, if you haven\u0026rsquo;t played it, makes you feel damn cool, like a jedi. or neo.\nlastly, i bought the new canon s400 digital elph. it is like a beautiful woman. i will call her arwen, since she is an \u0026ldquo;elph\u0026rdquo;. arwen just took a picture of me, which is weird because the light in my room is weird. but here it is! it\u0026rsquo;s a hello from me picture.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/06/summer-reading-list/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etoday i finished my last final paper for spring 2003. i\u0026rsquo;m free! until september.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethus, i will now present to you my somewhat-ambitious reading list for the summer 2003, in no particular order:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. \u003cstrong\u003ethe chronicles of narnia\u003c/strong\u003e, c.s. lewis. it\u0026rsquo;s been awhile since i\u0026rsquo;ve read these, and i picked up a beautifully illustrated hardback version.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2. \u003cstrong\u003echristianity and the nature of science\u003c/strong\u003e, j.p. moreland. pretty decent phlosophy. i started this one last year sometime and it\u0026rsquo;s been collecting dust. time to put it to rest for good.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"summer reading list"},{"content":"i lied. this entry will not be stunning prose either.\ni just had to say goodbye to stanford 2002-2003. it was a fun year. it saw a lot of changes in my life. a lot of changes in who i am. i\u0026rsquo;m not sure if i like all of them yet, so i may not be keeping them. although the ridding of them may be more difficult than i might think.\nstill, so many obviously good things happened it would seem strange to say that god was not likewise obviously at work in this year. though i may not be able to admit it to myself yet i think i have actually grown! and so it is appropriate to thank god and all those, my friends, my acquaintances, or people i have randomly happened upon, for making this year what it was. it has been a wonderful 21 months of living in california, and i look forward to september, for what may be my last 9.\nnow, as i shut down my computer in griffin 302 for good, i can\u0026rsquo;t help but feel that standard twinge of nostalgia. unfortunately there is no time to reminisce about the year, because packing, studying, and sleep are all vying for my undivided attention.\nwhen next you hear from me i will most likely be safely ensconced in the floridian resort castle that is my home. and i will most likely be procrastinating on writing the final paper which is due this friday (i just had to bring work home with me). until then\u0026ndash;adieu!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/06/mixed-good-feelings/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei lied. this entry will not be stunning prose either.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei just had to say goodbye to stanford 2002-2003. it was a fun year. it saw a lot of changes in my life. a lot of changes in who i am. i\u0026rsquo;m not sure if i like all of them yet, so i may not be keeping them. although the ridding of them may be more difficult than i might think.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"mixed good feelings"},{"content":"since gems of pure literary genius do not seem to be forthcoming any time soon, why don\u0026rsquo;t i take this time and give a few highlights of what\u0026rsquo;s been going on?\n1. school - today was my last day of classes. before i am officially done with the quarter, however, i must successfully complete one logic final (all questions of which having to do with godel\u0026rsquo;s incompleteness theorems), and write two papers, one for philosophy of quantum mechanics (this paper will be on whether or not the quantum logic interpretation of quantum theory has a solution to the measurement problem), and one for my seminar on intentionality (this paper will be on whether or not there is a plausible way to naturalize the semantics of words referring to uninstantiated properties, like that of being a unicorn). assuming i can get all these done by next week, i will officially be a 4th-year undergraduate student and a 2nd-year graduate student!\n2. japan - for the not-too-bright among you, my last (albeit lacking somewhat in the html arena) post was meant to say that i will be going to a japan for a week, starting june 17th. in preparation for that trip, on which my dad is also going, and in which we plan to visit much of tokyo, as well as climb mt. fuji, i have been learning japanese. the going is slow, but i\u0026rsquo;ve got about half of the hiragana (one writing system) memorized, and am working on some basic vocabulary as well.\n3. music - in the last few weeks i have seen pedro the lion, starflyer 59, ester drang, pete yorn, and coldplay. all the shows were absolutely wonderful, and i think last week marked my 8th time seeing pedro the lion live. wonderful.\n4. summer is here! i\u0026rsquo;ve been doing plenty of outdoors things instead of working on the aforementioned school items (it sucks to get out of school in the middle of june). for instance, on sunday, my intramural soccer team (the chicken nuggets) played 3 playoff games to come in second place overall in the coed division. it was a good run, and for my first involvement in intramural sports, a job well done in my opinion. needless to say, i was in pain after playing 3 whole games within a few hours (we had no subs, so constant running). unfortunately, not a lot of climbing has been going on, for whatever reason.\n5. home - i go home to orlando next tuesday. i\u0026rsquo;ll be spending the summer working for a company there called excelsis. i\u0026rsquo;m not exactly sure, but my guess is i will be doing web programming/design, and maybe database programming/administration. i will spend the summer working, playing music with my brother, hopefully writing and recording new splendour hyaline songs, hopefully playing shows at lots of clubs around the area, running and climbing on a daily basis between the two, traveling to gainesville frequently to hang out with nyffy and jason before he leaves, and of course, sitting in my hot tub.\nnext time: stunning prose the likes of which you\u0026rsquo;ve never before seen!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/06/standard-updates/","summary":"\u003cp\u003esince gems of pure literary genius do not seem to be forthcoming any time soon, why don\u0026rsquo;t i take this time and give a few highlights of what\u0026rsquo;s been going on?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. \u003cstrong\u003eschool\u003c/strong\u003e - today was my last day of classes. before i am officially done with the quarter, however, i must successfully complete one logic final (all questions of which having to do with godel\u0026rsquo;s incompleteness theorems), and write two papers, one for philosophy of quantum mechanics (this paper will be on whether or not the quantum logic interpretation of quantum theory has a solution to the measurement problem), and one for my seminar on intentionality (this paper will be on whether or not there is a plausible way to naturalize the semantics of words referring to uninstantiated properties, like that of being a unicorn). assuming i can get all these done by next week, i will officially be a 4th-year undergraduate student and a 2nd-year graduate student!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"standard updates"},{"content":"carrierflight no.departingatarrivingatcabinaa826orlando6.17.2003\n08:02amchicago6.17.2003\n9:41amfirstaa153chicago6.17.2003\n11:00amtokyo6.18.2003\n2:00pmbusinessaa128tokyo6.24.2003\n5:15pmsan jose6.24.2003\n10:15ambusinessaa452san jose6.24.2003\n12:06pmdallas6.24.2003\n5:35pmfirstaa3054dallas6.24.2003\n7:13pmorlando6.24.2003\n10:42pmfirst\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/my-summer-adventure/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ecarrier\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eflight no.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003edeparting\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/strong\u003eat\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/strong\u003earriving\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eat\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/strong\u003ecabin\u003c/strong\u003eaa826orlando6.17.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n08:02amchicago6.17.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n9:41amfirstaa153chicago6.17.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n11:00amtokyo6.18.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n2:00pmbusinessaa128tokyo6.24.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n5:15pmsan jose6.24.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n10:15ambusinessaa452san jose6.24.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n12:06pmdallas6.24.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n5:35pmfirstaa3054dallas6.24.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n7:13pmorlando6.24.2003\u003cbr\u003e\n10:42pmfirst\u003c/p\u003e","title":"my summer adventure"},{"content":"tonight i felt melancholy, and too tired to go to bed. you see, i spent the bulk of the night at malibu grand prix, where i spent dollars and dollars of other people\u0026rsquo;s money on house of the dead 2, jurassic park, star wars: pod racer, cruisin usa: exotica [?], and skee-ball. you might wonder (a) why i was at an arcade, (b) who i was there with, and (c) why i was spending other people\u0026rsquo;s money. these are all valid questions of course, but i don\u0026rsquo;t feel like answering them.\nthe point is that any night full of shooting lasers at zombies, and full of going for the 100,000 hole in skee-ball (with zombie-like tenacity), is bound to be a night of deep questioning, soul-searching, and identity-seeking. and what better method for searching than google? you see, it occasionally occurs to me to wonder who i am, how i am identified, and such. i am sure questions like these occur to most people a good deal of the time, but i am blessedly unperturbed by them for the most part. still, there are moments where i would wish to examine my roots, revisit the history of my life, trace out the pattern of my growth\u0026ndash;essentially, to assure myself that i am not disconnected from my own history, and that the narrative of my life is unfolding in a meaningful and acceptable way.\nroots, however, are notoriously hard for me to come by. where am i from? not california. not florida. texas? maybe. maybe not. papua new guinea? i wish i could say yes, but i can\u0026rsquo;t, on pain of posing. arizona? probably not. which are my childhood streets? there were so many\u0026hellip;\nof course, i jealously regard my childhood as the best imaginable, and the multiple moves as pre-requisite to a fuller understanding of culture and the world. so in the end i can\u0026rsquo;t be frustrated with the situation. and i\u0026rsquo;m not. still, it makes my past more hazy to me\u0026ndash;more mysterious. less accessible by car or phone. all my pre-collegiate friends, from 1st grade on, are thousands of miles away. so who is there with me, keeping an eye on who i\u0026rsquo;m becoming? no one.\nso it becomes necessary for me to go back periodically\u0026hellip;to engage in the equivalent of looking over old scrapbooks and what have you. tonight i opened up microsoft outlook and went to my e-mail archive. i am fastidious about the storing and organizing of e-mails, so in a moment\u0026rsquo;s time i was reading the oldest e-mails still on my computer. as it happens, i have every e-mail ever received or sent by me since exactly 4 years ago. before that, alas, i was not so concerned with saving such information (all too precious, little that i knew) and the memoirs of my early internet days remain lost, forever unable to be teased piecemeal out of correspondence.\nluckily, enough was left from before the move to florida that i felt sufficiently transported into the past. i was slightly shocked by what i read: my words were so very different, and yet so very alike, to what i would write now. the attempted wit and sarcasm were very much there, but it seemed so young, so un-cynical. i was less wise, and also less foolish at the same time (if you think this is impossible, you are wrong: i sense both growing in me every day, to my frustration).\ni pored over e-mails to and from old friends with whom i haven\u0026rsquo;t spoken, in some cases, since those very letters were written. it became addictive, drug-like\u0026hellip;i couldn\u0026rsquo;t get enough of the words of the previous selves of my friends, and the words with which my previous self responded, sometimes after having been painstakingly constructed to impress, to delight, to woo, to influence, to control\u0026hellip;\nclearly, the past is a powerful thing. powerfully dangerous, of course: nothing is easier than becoming mired in it. but powerfully instructive. i hope that these old e-mails will continue to exist, as they age like good wine, ripe for the tasting of my 40-year old self. how much wisdom will i have then? probably not so much that i couldn\u0026rsquo;t learn still from the advice of my friends and myself: age 16. a digital time capsule, if you will.\nbut i ramble. the excursion into the former days inspired me to look up old friends and see what they were up to. hence the reference to google earlier. thanks to its speedy algorithms i now know, in some cases with surprising detail, what a number of my friends from texas are doing, where they are going to school, etc\u0026hellip; and though i didn\u0026rsquo;t speak with any of these friends, or connect with them in any real way, i feel as if i did connect in some sense, as i was reminded that they continued living their lives after i left. this comes as a shock to me every so often\u0026ndash;that people move and think and grow when i am not looking at them. it\u0026rsquo;s a scary and humbling thought, really.\nof course, the decision to extend the night further and write about this melancholy has taken some of the sweetness out of the past\u0026rsquo;s draught. reminiscing is very certainly one of those things that must be done, not talked about, for it to have any use. and now i have destroyed its gift. but it is not a loss without some recompense, for some day, possibly years from now, i may read this entry and come to realize some important thing about myself through it. which is, of course, exactly what has been under discussion. so it is no doubt a reasonable expectation.\nbut it\u0026rsquo;s damn late. good night.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/self-indulgence-via-the-past/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etonight i felt melancholy, and too tired to go to bed. you see, i spent the bulk of the night at malibu grand prix, where i spent dollars and dollars of other people\u0026rsquo;s money on \u003cem\u003ehouse of the dead 2\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ejurassic park\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003estar wars: pod racer\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ecruisin usa: exotica\u003c/em\u003e [?], and skee-ball. you might wonder (a) why i was at an arcade, (b) who i was there with, and (c) why i was spending other people\u0026rsquo;s money. these are all valid questions of course, but i don\u0026rsquo;t feel like answering them.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"self-indulgence via the past"},{"content":"last thursday i flew home. shortly after arriving at my house, i left again to see the matrix reloaded with my friends. it was a fantastic movie, and i\u0026rsquo;m still shuffling bits of it around in my head to construct a coherent plot structure.\nthe few days after that were filled with parties. graduation parties, mostly, but i also attended one wedding (an outside wedding, on the grass, sunny, 95 degrees, and humid as a glass of water). the parties were also fun. at the first one i went to (my sister\u0026rsquo;s), i was able to run around with my brother outside in a terrific thunderstorm, tossing a frisbee. later on in that same thunderstorm duty found me on the roof, unclogging one of our gutters, and praying that if lightning decided to strike, it would go for something besides me. the rest of the party was spent gradually losing a game of chess to my good friend josh, and eating little croissant hot dogs or something.\ni realized all of a sudden at these parties that my sister and her friends have grown up. it seems that until last weekend i had still been thinking of them all as if they were high school freshman, trapped in shy and insecure bodies and minds. and then, magically, they now appear 5 or 6 years older. the girls are all beautiful and no longer the annoying, giggle-prone crazies everyone knows high school girls are, and the guys are for the most part taller than me, laid back, studly, and surprisingly wise. for the first time, maybe, i was able to hang out with many of these people, not because they were my \u0026ldquo;sister\u0026rsquo;s friends\u0026rdquo;, but because they were fun in and of themselves. (this again shows my snobbiness in who i find enjoyable, and for what reasons. however, i think maturity is a somewhat allowable criterion for enjoyable hanging out)\nobviously, most of these kids were just as mature and just as fun a year ago, and so you might wonder what the big deal is. the deal is, i think, that there is a line crossed when someone graduates from high school, and this line, in the friendship calculus, adds a few years. so, if i am allowed to be friends with people at most 3 years younger than me, i will be able to hang out with high school freshman when i am a high school senior, but when i am a freshman in college, i can only hang out with high school seniors and up (or perhaps juniors). this puts those who were high school freshmen when i was a senior out of my \u0026ldquo;friend\u0026rdquo; range until they graduate.\nobviously, that\u0026rsquo;s a bunch of crap. but it\u0026rsquo;s fun to make up. the point is, my little sister\u0026rsquo;s all grown up and i\u0026rsquo;m so excited to see who she will choose to be in life! and the other point is, if you are an older brother with a younger sister, don\u0026rsquo;t be too mean to her and her friends when they are in the awkward high school phase, because if you\u0026rsquo;re not careful they will grow up to be amazingly hot and you\u0026rsquo;ll be kicking yourself. then again, you could always date older women, like me.\nwhat else did i do in orlando? i went running a few times with david, once at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, in a sunny 95-degree swelter. i went to a pool hall for the first time in my life and lost miserably at cutthroat and nine-ball. and, get this, i randomly went to the pete yorn show at the house of blues in orlando on monday, thanks to the paste-musicking of jason killingsworth. it was a pretty good show.\nsoon enough, of course, the fun and not-working had to end, and i flew back to stanford on tuesday. luckily, i had a lot to look forward to, as the following night was the pedro the lion, ester drang, and starflyer 59 concert. it was in san francisco, and i went with show-loving friends mackenzie, chuck, and alex. i haven\u0026rsquo;t thought about it enough to say for sure, but it may have been my favorite SF show ever. ester drang was beautiful, starflyer was actually entertaining, and pedro rocked harder than he ever has before. in particular, the live version of \u0026lsquo;second best\u0026rsquo; (played with 6 people on stage) alone was worth the price of admission. on top of that, not being satisfied to provide us with musical delicacies which can only be likened to the sad addictiveness of life itself, dave bazan was on his best verbal game, making clever comment after insightful observation time and time again.\nand that brings us to now. 2 am. back from seeing the matrix reloaded a second time. as i said, good stuff. and as i now say, good night!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/even-little-sisters-grow-up/","summary":"\u003cp\u003elast thursday i flew home. shortly after arriving at my house, i left again to see the matrix reloaded with my friends. it was a fantastic movie, and i\u0026rsquo;m still shuffling bits of it around in my head to construct a coherent plot structure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe few days after that were filled with parties. graduation parties, mostly, but i also attended one wedding (an outside wedding, on the grass, sunny, 95 degrees, and humid as a glass of water). the parties were also fun. at the first one i went to (my sister\u0026rsquo;s), i was able to run around with my brother outside in a terrific thunderstorm, tossing a frisbee. later on in that same thunderstorm duty found me on the roof, unclogging one of our gutters, and praying that if lightning decided to strike, it would go for something besides me. the rest of the party was spent gradually losing a game of chess to my good friend \u003ca href=\"http://josserbrown.blogspot.com\"\u003ejosh\u003c/a\u003e, and eating little croissant hot dogs or something.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"even little sisters grow up"},{"content":"back from a trip! it was great. details to follow\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/post-it-note-style/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eback from a trip! it was great. details to follow\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"post-it note style"},{"content":"for me the way to deal with failure is to write music. this song is the result of many, many failures:\none day the future will be tomorrow\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/i-know-that-song/","summary":"\u003cp\u003efor me the way to deal with failure is to write music. this song is the result of many, many failures:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ca href=\"one_day_the_future_will_be_tomorrow.mp3\"\u003eone day the future will be tomorrow\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i know that song"},{"content":"last weekend:\ni drove down to santa barbara on thursday afternoon with one of my suitemates, dave. we stayed at his house near thousand oaks thursday night, then woke up early friday morning to reserve a campsite north of santa barbara at el capitan state park. we did this because last weekend was the class of 2004 cornerstone surf and camping trip. as it turned out, there wasn\u0026rsquo;t a whole lot of surfing, because the waves pretty much sucked. instead, we played hours and hours of beach football and volleyball. i had lots of fun scrambling around the seaside cliffs in the cool air that brought out the bright blue of the sky. we cruised around santa barbara like the studly men that we are, picking up chicks left and right. there were so many chicks following each of us, you would not believe. we barbecued and lit stuff on fire and generally had a sweet time. i slept outside in the 40-degree weather, no tent: just sleeping bag and therm-a-rest. it was gorgeous to roll over and see the ocean shimmering with the reflected light of the bright moon, and to feel the strong sea breeze. california is where it\u0026rsquo;s at.\nnext weekend:\ni\u0026rsquo;m going home on thursday for my sister\u0026rsquo;s graduation (which is the following monday). i plan to (a) see the matrix 2 with my friends, (b) hang out with my friends and family, and (c) sit in the spa for an obscene amount of time smoking various forms of tobacco and reading. this will more or less be the extent of my time at home, and i will love it.\nnow:\nin between these two trips, i will struggle to find motivation to (a) catch up on the work i didn\u0026rsquo;t do last weekend, and (b) get a head-start on the work due when i get back from next weekend\u0026rsquo;s trip. in the end, i won\u0026rsquo;t find that motivation, and i\u0026rsquo;ll spend way too much time sitting in front of my computer either procrastinating or\u0026hellip;.well, that\u0026rsquo;s about all you can do with a computer i guess.\non the positive side, there\u0026rsquo;s really nothing due until 2 or 3 weeks from now, when i have 3 massive papers and projects to turn in. also, tonight i\u0026rsquo;m playing laser tag. life is good.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/the-surf-trip-blues/","summary":"\u003cp\u003elast weekend:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei drove down to santa barbara on thursday afternoon with one of my suitemates, dave. we stayed at his house near thousand oaks thursday night, then woke up early friday morning to reserve a campsite north of santa barbara at el capitan state park. we did this because last weekend was the class of 2004 cornerstone surf and camping trip. as it turned out, there wasn\u0026rsquo;t a whole lot of surfing, because the waves pretty much sucked. instead, we played hours and hours of beach football and volleyball. i had lots of fun scrambling around the seaside cliffs in the cool air that brought out the bright blue of the sky. we cruised around santa barbara like the studly men that we are, picking up chicks left and right. there were so many chicks following each of us, you would not believe. we barbecued and lit stuff on fire and generally had a sweet time. i slept outside in the 40-degree weather, no tent: just sleeping bag and therm-a-rest. it was gorgeous to roll over and see the ocean shimmering with the reflected light of the bright moon, and to feel the strong sea breeze. california is where it\u0026rsquo;s at.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the surf trip blues"},{"content":"just a few moments ago, i was in a somewhat contrived and predictable bike accident. see, every time i bike back to my suite, there is a rather narrow walkway, at the end of which is a 90-degree left turn. at this intersection of sorts there are usually any number of bikes parked in any number of random configurations. thus, biking through them usually takes the skill and balance of an acrobat.\nuntil now, i have never failed to go through this gauntlet successfully. either i use my mad biking talents to navigate the choppy waters, or i realize it\u0026rsquo;s futile and walk my bike along.\ntoday, i said to myself as i approached said Corral of Death, \u0026ldquo;this will be the hardest one yet!\u0026rdquo;, meaning of course that it looked well-nigh impossible to turn without crashing into the other bikes. i thought for a moment about calling it quits and walking safely through, leading my bike at my side like a trusty steed (in fact, the brand of my cycle is \u0026ldquo;iron horse\u0026rdquo;). instead, i recklessly decided to take my chances.\ni neared the Turn of Utter Dismay and slowed down to a halt, using all my balance to keep steady (this is exactly what you have to do to make it\u0026ndash;stop almost completely and then hop the bike around while stationary). all was going well, and i let out a bit of air to release some pressure. just at that moment, my right pedal brushed the rubber of a nearby tire, and caught slightly\u0026ndash;of course, i knew then it was all over. i struggled valiantly but ultimately vainly to regain balance, but my initial over-compensation shot me down to the left, where i crashed into a girl\u0026rsquo;s pink mountain bike. this bike was attached to a rack so it stayed where it was but just turned sideways\u0026ndash;me on top of it and my bike on top of me.\ni took stock at that point and realized that my leg was pinned between the two bikes, my foot having scraped along the gears on the way down. i tried to right myself, but i was horizontal and my bike\u0026rsquo;s drop-forward handle bar extension on the left side had interlocked with the water bottle holder of the pink bike, making it impossible to clear the way for some leverage. eventually i had to extricate my leg, scraping it again on the chain in the process.\nthen i was able to untangle my bike, right the other one, and walk the five meters back to my suite.\nit was a failure, true, but i\u0026rsquo;m not ashamed. i don\u0026rsquo;t think anyone else could have managed it, either. of course, i do have a few scrapes to show for my hubris. fortunately, one of them, when looked at from the appropriate angle, looks quite like south america, and the chain grease and blood on my foot form a pattern that clearly resembles a ribbed and leathery dragon wing. i feel that these battle scars are a glorious form of art, and i shall leave them unattended until i am forced to take a shower late tonight.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/05/have-you-ever-looked-death-in-the-face/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ejust a few moments ago, i was in a somewhat contrived and predictable bike accident. see, every time i bike back to my suite, there is a rather narrow walkway, at the end of which is a 90-degree left turn. at this intersection of sorts there are usually any number of bikes parked in any number of random configurations. thus, biking through them usually takes the skill and balance of an acrobat.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"have you ever looked death in the face?"},{"content":"before i will like you or listen to what you have to say, or take you seriously, you have to gain my respect (especially if you are an authority figure, but we won\u0026rsquo;t worry about that). if i don\u0026rsquo;t respect you, i won\u0026rsquo;t desire to get to know you on a deep level. there\u0026rsquo;s even the chance that i\u0026rsquo;ll do my best to challenge you at every turn. if i don\u0026rsquo;t respect you, it would not be fun for us to work together. just because i don\u0026rsquo;t respect you, of course, doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that everything is over. i can still tolerate you. i can put you at arm\u0026rsquo;s distance and, at every time you make a mistake (these times are often), even make excuses for you (did i expect you to meet my standards?). i can smile and be civil, but if you corner me at a large group meeting and start talking to me, it will be obvious that i want nothing more than to leave.\nby default, of course, i respect no one. these are the ways in which i can come to actually respect you:\n1. you can be as good as or better than me at philosophy (this is major respect)\n2. you can evidence substantial merit in some academic field (except Urban Studies or shit like that)\n3. you can be suitably athletic\n4. you can be humble to the point that in our interactions my own arrogance is made obvious even to me\n5. you can have some really amazing skill or talent (music, art) such that i know i couldn\u0026rsquo;t do what you do\n6. you can be outgoing and always the center of attention (i.e., popular)\n7. you can prove me wrong\n8. you can be from another country\n9. you can speak fluently languages other than english\n10. you can do something that just amazes me, like, buy 6 acres of land in costa rica as an investment\nand, for girls:\n11. you can be really good-looking (although, this one can\u0026rsquo;t stand alone. so it only works by itself until you open your mouth)\nand, when i do come to respect you, i will do anything to make you my friend. if on any given day i think you have some reservations about me, don\u0026rsquo;t like me, are disappointed with me, or some such situation holds, that day will feel like the worst in my life. i will feel like a failure. i will basically try to make you as integral a part of my life as humanly possible, because your value is automatically internalized, and i want it.\nnow, i\u0026rsquo;ll spare you the list of things which make me go from having a neutral attitude towards you to one of disrespect. because that\u0026rsquo;s not the point. what is the point? the point is that respect, as defined by the list i gave, is what denotes my relational attitude to you. and, defined that way, it is clearly wrong. it is wrong to not desire to interact with people just because they don\u0026rsquo;t fulfill some criteria. but this is, i think, exactly how i operate.\nso, the solution is either to give up respect as the thing which motivates me to seek relationships with people, or to re-define respect so as to make it acceptable (say, by adding \u0026ldquo;you can be a human\u0026rdquo;). here are the problems with those approaches: for the former, it seems impossible to change what naturally motivates me to like people and want them to like me. or, maybe i should just not have any criteria\u0026ndash;i should like people indiscriminately. either way, i\u0026rsquo;m not foreseeing anything that is within my power to change. and, as to the latter option, it obviously won\u0026rsquo;t work, because the list is unfortunately ad hoc: i don\u0026rsquo;t come upon person X and decide if i respect X by checking X\u0026rsquo;s properties against the list. no\u0026ndash;i respect whom i will (i have no idea why)\u0026ndash;i just built up the list from examples of people whom i respect. bottom line is it doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem possible to create an a priori set of things i respect. so modifying such an a priori set is even less possible.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been speaking of relationships generally, but all of this holds just as well for romantic relationships. of course, romantic relationships have their own special difficulties. here\u0026rsquo;s an example:\nif we assume that eventually i figure out how to like people and seek deep relationships with them equally, and not based on some \u0026ldquo;jonathan\u0026rsquo;s ad hoc system of merit\u0026rdquo;, this raises a problem for romantic relationships. because, if i apply my new understanding about relationships in general to them, i might as well date anybody. girl X will work same as girl Y. but you are saying \u0026ldquo;well, that\u0026rsquo;s one of the reasons we know romantic love isn\u0026rsquo;t like community/relational love in the first place. so you have nothing\u0026rdquo;. ok, granted. but we can think of the problem in a different light: when i choose to date someone, i either have criteria or i don\u0026rsquo;t. and, if i do have criteria (i.e., before i date you i make sure you fit the bill, whatever that is), it seems that i am being unspiritually chauvinistic (in the technical sense of the term). but if i don\u0026rsquo;t, it is hard to see why i haven\u0026rsquo;t been married for the past 4 years.\nthe answer? i dunno. maybe it is to have some criteria, and make sure that those are the right criteria. still, i think the ones that we can say with certainty are right (like, \u0026ldquo;is human\u0026rdquo;) leave too many options open: it\u0026rsquo;s too liberal to explain what all the fuss is about finding \u0026ldquo;the One\u0026rdquo; (or even \u0026ldquo;the One I Happened To Meet of Several Possibilities\u0026rdquo;).\nit is at this point that the christian idea that god will make my mate obvious (even if there are multiple possibilities to him) becomes very attractive. because then it is no longer about who fulfills my sorry criteria, or about which desiderata she doesn\u0026rsquo;t meet. it is about who i am meant to love. of course, we have to assume also that god picks someone, as the person i am meant to love, whom i actually will love. but since god is probably a better judge of character and personality than i am, i trust we can let him make that decision. there\u0026ndash;problem solved? sure.\nsee, attractive! but also not, because it means all my philosophizing is more or less useless. it means that writing long blog entries like this because of thoughts about life, love, and why are ultimately exercises with no purpose. spinning wheels. treading water. dry heaves. shooting blanks. or, maybe that\u0026rsquo;s not a bad thing\u0026ndash;maybe these have their uses. treading water may not get me anywhere, but the more i do it, the more prepared my muscles will be for the time when i\u0026rsquo;m actually ready to go somewhere! (now that i think about it, none of the other actions in the list have any particularly beneficial purpose, ahem).\nand with that, we end: more useless logic-chopping to come, just you wait!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/rules-of-engagement/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ebefore i will like you or listen to what you have to say, or take you seriously, you have to gain my respect (especially if you are an authority figure, but we won\u0026rsquo;t worry about that). if i don\u0026rsquo;t respect you, i won\u0026rsquo;t desire to get to know you on a deep level. there\u0026rsquo;s even the chance that i\u0026rsquo;ll do my best to challenge you at every turn. if i don\u0026rsquo;t respect you, it would not be fun for us to work together. just because i don\u0026rsquo;t respect you, of course, doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean that everything is over. i can still tolerate you. i can put you at arm\u0026rsquo;s distance and, at every time you make a mistake (these times are often), even make excuses for you (did i expect you to meet my standards?). i can smile and be civil, but if you corner me at a large group meeting and start talking to me, it will be obvious that i want nothing more than to leave.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"rules of engagement"},{"content":"i am happy to be getting back into the rhythm of climbing regularly again. last quarter and even in recent weeks, i\u0026rsquo;ve been to the gym maybe once every week or two weeks. i\u0026rsquo;m even more ashamed to say that i don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;ve been outside since fall quarter. but, in line with my stated goals for the quarter, i\u0026rsquo;ve gone 3 times in the past week. since each day of climbing was separated by a day of rest, and since i got on average 10 hours of sleep per night this week, my strength has come rushing back. today i sent problem after problem almost effortlessly. it was a wonderful feeling!\nso in celebration of the promise of moving to the next level in my climbing ability (assuming i continue to climb 3 times a week), i purchased a pair of boreal pyros climbing shoes. (click here for info). this pair of shoes is much more technical than my current pair. right now i have boreal ninjas, which are a very comfortable slipper, and a great gym shoe (easy to take on and off, and not too hard on the feet). unfortunately the ninjas aren\u0026rsquo;t too great on really overhanging routes or ones that require super-tight footwork. the pyros, on the other hand, will be less comfortable, but will afford me an advantage on the intense, but short, sport routes i find myself on most often. they even feature the special fusion 3 rubber on the top of the shoe over the toes and on the heel, which makes toe-hooking, heel-hooking, and certain kinds of smearing much easier.\nneedless to say, i am hoping that this purchase will fuel my desire to become a really good climber, and help me reach that goal by making it technically within my reach and providing a new sense of excitement. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to try them out on monday, when i think they might arrive!\ni apologize to give a detailed description of things of much less substance than what i have been writing about recently, but i\u0026rsquo;m mostly writing because i\u0026rsquo;m bored, and i just got back from the wall.\nalas, no philosophy of girls this time around, either. more of that, undoubtedly, later.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/climbing-rocks-thats-a-pun/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am happy to be getting back into the rhythm of climbing regularly again. last quarter and even in recent weeks, i\u0026rsquo;ve been to the gym maybe once every week or two weeks. i\u0026rsquo;m even more ashamed to say that i don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;ve been outside since fall quarter. but, in line with my stated goals for the quarter, i\u0026rsquo;ve gone 3 times in the past week. since each day of climbing was separated by a day of rest, and since i got on average 10 hours of sleep per night this week, my strength has come rushing back. today i sent problem after problem almost effortlessly. it was a wonderful feeling!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"climbing rocks (that's a pun)"},{"content":"small are the words: the remix\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/fake-electronica/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003ca href=\"small_are_the_words_remix.mp3\"\u003esmall are the words: the remix\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"fake electronica"},{"content":"and so, blood pounded in my ears and my feet pounded the path back into the city, but i was deaf to the cries of my body to stop, my face tear-streaked and wild-eyed, mouth agape in vain effort to stop the burning in my lungs: but it was the burning in my heart that blinded and bemuted me. i wanted it to burst so that i could die. i felt like i was going to die every time i thought of what happened. \u0026ldquo;and i will die\u0026rdquo;, i thought, \u0026ldquo;just as soon as i tell the disciples. i will not live in this world anymore, that betrays and deceives and tears to pieces every holy thing. i will not live in this world that takes the best of all men and exults in his slaughter! i will not live in this world that destroys the one thing in it that ever gave me real love. i cannot live without that love!\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;and is there no end to the darkness?\u0026rdquo;, i screamed inwardly as i continued to run and the crazed and adrenaline-pumped energies started to coalesce into a huge pit of dread in my center. \u0026ldquo;judas was not enough. his eyes were not enough, that never stopped roving where they should not. his stealing hands were not enough, that harmed the poor we were trying to help. and of course his betrayal was not enough! neither was the sin of the priests so high that it could not be topped, even in executing my lord\u0026mdash;for now the most base deed has been done. they have taken my lord, and i do not know where they have put him!\u0026rdquo;\nthese were my thoughts as i ran, still, as always, not comprehending the truth. and these were the words that fell in shattered pieces out of my mouth, between gasps, to peter and john when i arrived at the place where they were hiding. when they realized what i was saying and believed that because of my obvious exertions it must be the truth, their already-drawn faces fell all the more, but in peter\u0026rsquo;s eyes i saw a spark of defiance and anger. immediately he thrust me, not unkindly, out of the doorway, and began running. john saw that i got some water and then was off like a shot after peter, quickly catching up and overtaking him even while i could still see them.\ni fell to the ground then after satisfying my thirst and contemplated how i would die. later it surprised me when i became aware that this was the lowest point of my life\u0026ndash;where my heart passed closest to what it must feel like to be in sheol. my lord was now not just dead, but gone, forever unreachable except in blurry memory. then in utter desolation it occurred to me to go back to the tomb and commit suicide there, in the last place i had seen my lord. i recalled how i had dropped the burial spices at the tomb to run the more quickly, and figured that if i ingested these i would die.\nwith this hint of purpose all the pain in my side from running subsided, and my mind grew deathly calm. i trotted back to the tomb fancying that samson must have felt much the same with his hands on the pillars at his sides, although i hated that, unlike samson, my death would not cause the thieves of my lord\u0026rsquo;s body to be crushed and destroyed. do you see, child, how far gone i was? and how short-sighted?\nwhen i reached the tomb john was outside with tears still on his face, but looking more thoughtful than anything else. at that time peter strode out of the cave with fury and murder written in his eyes. i saw his hands shaking, and i knew that, had the thieves been there, those powerful hands of peter\u0026rsquo;s would have struck down any number of the villains. he glanced at me and then left, intent on doing i know not what. john left shortly thereafter by another route, leaving me alone with the jars of spices, the gaping tomb, and my dark plan.\nit was then that i became aware of another person in the area. i turned around and saw an unfamiliar man, who i assumed had been hiding nearby while peter and john were examining the tomb. my first reaction was an anger that surprised me\u0026ndash;i felt that this person, whom i thought to be the gardener because of his clothes, was symbolic of all those in jerusalem who had, in one moment, crowned my lord the \u0026lsquo;king of kings\u0026rsquo;, and in the next laughed and jeered as he was lashed. but before i had even a chance to give vent to this anger, a huge wave of shame came unbidden and pierced my heart, as i thought of my plan to die there. the smooth stone of the jar that i had picked up seconds before now felt heavy and scalding like heated metal. i dropped it to the ground and my own scalding tears joined it, mixing with the embalming fluids that pooled on the dirt.\nwith the intrusion of the unknown man and the inescapable weight of shame, all the stoic, self-destructive purpose that was driving me disappeared, and pain and grief once again flooded into my body. the presence of the man made my shame all the greater, and my eyes were downcast.\n\u0026ldquo;woman,\u0026rdquo; he said, \u0026ldquo;why are you crying? who is it you are looking for?\u0026rdquo;\nanger rose again as i saw that his words proved he must have been eavesdropping on peter and john, but i had no strength to display it. instead, my voice came weak and small, and i hated it. \u0026ldquo;sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and i will get him,\u0026rdquo; i said, not daring to look up and feeling nauseous.\n\u0026ldquo;mary\u0026rdquo;\nthe voice came like a knife to my heart and a splinter of light to my benighted mind. not daring to look up, i froze as a rush of images and memories joined the reverberations of the voice in piercing my heart. i felt that a thousand needles were running to and fro inside my body, and above all, a massive fear shadowed my mind\u0026hellip;the fear that i would raise my eyes and see just the gardener, or worse: nothing at all. i had thought it could not get any worse, and now i was being taunted by the very voice of my lord!\nand yet\u0026hellip;and yet the addicting gentleness of the voice still called to me long after the echoes had died down, insistently but not urgently, as if the speaker had all the time in the world. in that instant i knew that my mind, in all its delusion, could never manufacture or reproduce such a sound\u0026ndash;a sound of command, yet patience, grace, and love. with that realization hope exploded throughout my body and i trembled with the warmth of it. it grew until it would no longer be refused, and i turned my eyes from the broken jar at my feet (the very instrument of my death) upwards in glorious surrender to hope, not quite daring to believe what would meet my eyes.\n\u0026ldquo;rabboni!\u0026rdquo; i cried, recognizing jesus at last, and with that cry the world exulted. i felt in that moment as i have never felt before, and i knew that the greatest secret, the greatest surprise, the very telos of the universe had just called my name. my name! i was suddenly aware that every blade of grass, every grain of sand, every tree, and every mountain had been dying with me, and was now full to the overflowing with joy because death had been defeated! i knew that i, the most humble of people, a woman and a prostitute, had witnessed the unveiling of the purpose of humanity and of existence. and i knew that god delighted in making his mystery known first to a broken and suicidal prostitute.\ntruly, i had never felt more embarrassment and shame than in that moment. i had never before been so unaware and disgusted at my failings\u0026ndash;at my body and the tears and the evil things that occuppied my mind. and yet i had never experienced more acceptance. i saw that in and because of my lord, all the things that were broken in me, that were broken about me, could be redeemed! i saw that, one day, i would be able to be naked without shame, as even adam and eve were unable to be for long. i saw this and i knew it, because of the living proof in front of me.\nand now, though that proof is gone and taken into heaven, i know it will not be long. i can feel the transformation will take place soon, and my body trembles at the very imagining of it. i can no longer hear the voice that opened my understanding for the first time, and that called my name\u0026ndash;that spoke inside the walls of my own house! nay, too many years have gone by and that memory has faded with all the others. joyfully, it no longer worries me, because the image of his love is burned onto my scarred heart, just as the image of the sun is burned into our eyes if we look at it, but everlasting.\nand know this, child (for though you are grown, you are still a child to me): if jesus of nazareth chooses to save me, whom they call mary magdalene, the lowest of all the women in judea, he will without a doubt open his love even unto you, and to any who asks it of him\u0026hellip;\ntherefore, child, ask!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/sunday/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eand so, blood pounded in my ears and my feet pounded the path back into the city, but i was deaf to the cries of my body to stop, my face tear-streaked and wild-eyed, mouth agape in vain effort to stop the burning in my lungs: but it was the burning in my heart that blinded and bemuted me. i wanted it to burst so that i could die. i felt like i was \u003cem\u003egoing\u003c/em\u003e to die every time i thought of what happened. \u0026ldquo;and i will die\u0026rdquo;, i thought, \u0026ldquo;just as soon as i tell the disciples. i will not live in this world anymore, that betrays and deceives and tears to pieces every holy thing. i will not live in this world that takes the best of all men and exults in his slaughter! i will not live in this world that destroys the one thing in it that ever gave me real love. i \u003cem\u003ecannot\u003c/em\u003e live without that love!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sunday"},{"content":"at first, i could handle the parlor tricks and the mysterious (obviously inane) babble. i could even deal with his useless confrontations with the other teachers. after all, you know there\u0026rsquo;s no love lost between you pharisees and anyone but yourselves. and i guess you could say i allowed myself some smiles at the expense of those who looked like fools after trying to trap him in his own words (i admit it\u0026ndash;and i\u0026rsquo;m not afraid of you. you need me). you have to give him that much: he had a knack for confusing and disorienting his opponents in public, much to the people\u0026rsquo;s delight. ah, but the people! you know how they are\u0026ndash;they\u0026rsquo;ll clap and cheer at any oddity. and doesn\u0026rsquo;t he know that\u0026rsquo;s what he is to them? just a curiosity! a curiosity, nonetheless, that manages to pull food out of thin air. i still haven\u0026rsquo;t figured out how he did that one. i don\u0026rsquo;t wonder if there weren\u0026rsquo;t people planted in the crowd with food stashed in hidden places\u0026ndash;that might do the trick.\nbut what have years of wandering around the sewer districts of insignificant villages in samaria, producing food from god-knows-where and \u0026ldquo;healing\u0026rdquo; people (it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to be \u0026ldquo;blind\u0026rdquo;. i could do it myself. i wonder if jesus would pay me as much as he paid his plants), got him? the applause of rabble! and then, their sticks and stones, because of his repugnant habit of quoting irrelevant passages from the law and the prophets at the wrong times. not only did he pick the wrong kind of followers, he turned them on himself! if anything is a miracle, it\u0026rsquo;s that he\u0026rsquo;s still alive\u0026hellip;\n\u0026hellip;or maybe it\u0026rsquo;s that i\u0026rsquo;m still around. at first, things were going smoothly. he wasn\u0026rsquo;t as prone to do so many damn rashful things. i smelled promise. and my companions weren\u0026rsquo;t so thick-headed. but he kept saying incomprehensible shit, and that gradually addled their brains. you\u0026rsquo;d never have thought so many fishermen could become so many useless mystics in such a short time! particularly that simon: going around, calling jesus the anointed. anointed, of all things! i\u0026rsquo;d make a better anointed than that carpenter. of course, jesus encouraged it, arrogant as he is, and \u0026ldquo;rewarded\u0026rdquo; simon by calling him peter. ha! i\u0026rsquo;m sure \u0026ldquo;peter\u0026rdquo; will get his fill of rocks when the people drag him to the gates and stone him for calling a carpenter the anointed. what will he think of his reward then? i hope i\u0026rsquo;m there to see it.\nof course, as the only \u0026ldquo;disciple\u0026rdquo; with his head on straight, i was given charge of the money bags. and this, you see, is primarily why i stuck around and disgraced myself with jesus and his lot. for whatever reason, people opened their purses to us whenever he came by. in hopes of \u0026ldquo;healing\u0026rdquo; or some unimportant favor, no doubt (and he never tired of granting the most insignificant things to the most insignificant people! it was insufferable, not to mention a waste of time). this was especially the case after news about lazarus got out\u0026ndash;lazarus, by the way, perplexes me. he never struck me as the kind who would pretend to die so jesus could \u0026ldquo;resurrect\u0026rdquo; him. in any case, it usually happened that even after feeding ourselves and that wretched gaggle of hangers-on (whores, to a one), there was a good deal of silver left over.\ni kept faithful watch over the money, taking some for myself only as my services warranted, but i knew the other disciples were jealous of my position and probably tattled lies to jesus about my use of the funds. no matter. i could deal with those fools. but i couldn\u0026rsquo;t deal with jesus when popularity turned against him and the money stopped coming in. i knew then that i had to leave the crazy charlatan behind before he dragged me into the mess he\u0026rsquo;d prepared for us (\u0026ldquo;if it were not so, i would have told you\u0026rdquo;!). the night that i made the decision was the night one of his prostitutes poured an entire jar of myros nardos on his feet! that jar could have fed us for months, but he just sat there with a sad smile on his face (why, i\u0026rsquo;ll never know\u0026ndash;i can\u0026rsquo;t fathom what goes on in his diseased mind) and let her do it. mary\u0026ndash;that was her name, and not a bad-looking girl. i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have minded meeting her in her whoring days (i know your types disapprove, but the bonds of business are stronger than those of morality, eh?). i complained, of course, but he responded with more of that nonsense that i can\u0026rsquo;t even remember.\nso, here i am. you want jesus and i want money. i think we can come to some sort of agreement. but remember, we\u0026rsquo;re not talking bronze here: i\u0026rsquo;ll have to go into hiding or those big brutes of fishermen will come after me after they\u0026rsquo;ve got over the fact that their \u0026ldquo;anointed\u0026rdquo; is gone forever. i want silver. thirty pieces, and no less. well? do we have a deal?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/friday/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eat first, i could handle the parlor tricks and the mysterious (obviously inane) babble. i could even deal with his useless confrontations with the other teachers. after all, you know there\u0026rsquo;s no love lost between you pharisees and anyone but yourselves. and i guess you could say i allowed myself some smiles at the expense of those who looked like fools after trying to trap him in his own words (i admit it\u0026ndash;and i\u0026rsquo;m not afraid of you. you need me). you have to give him that much: he had a knack for confusing and disorienting his opponents in public, much to the people\u0026rsquo;s delight. ah, but the people! you know how they are\u0026ndash;they\u0026rsquo;ll clap and cheer at any oddity. and doesn\u0026rsquo;t he know that\u0026rsquo;s what he is to them? just a curiosity! a curiosity, nonetheless, that manages to pull food out of thin air. i still haven\u0026rsquo;t figured out how he did that one. i don\u0026rsquo;t wonder if there weren\u0026rsquo;t people planted in the crowd with food stashed in hidden places\u0026ndash;that might do the trick.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"friday"},{"content":"choose which of the following is more significant:\n(1) i have never been in school in the month of july\n(2) i have never had a girlfriend in the month of april (at least, until the 26th)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/you-pick-two/","summary":"\u003cp\u003echoose which of the following is more significant:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(1) i have never been in school in the month of july\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(2) i have never had a girlfriend in the month of april (at least, until the 26th)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"you pick two"},{"content":"there is a fine line between insecurity and arrogance. this line is called \u0026ldquo;humble confidence\u0026rdquo;. we might also call it \u0026ldquo;realistic confidence\u0026rdquo;, since true humility is of course simply adherence to and coherence with truth\u0026ndash;what is actually the case. how could any other rendering be anything but \u0026ldquo;false\u0026rdquo; humility, by definition (to see the obviousness of this, examine all the stanford students who say \u0026ldquo;i did alright in high school\u0026rdquo;)? we might build in, of course, a certain amount of allowable subjectivism or ignorance on my part, and state only that humble confidence is believing about myself what is, according to my best judgment, true.\nso here\u0026rsquo;s the paradox: this sort of confidence is clearly the easiest and most natural thing to have, since the way things are (here, the way i am) is immediate. any falsehood is constructed (assuming of course, that my self-truth-perceiving faculties are in order). so then, why do i oscillate between insecurity and arrogance, passing through confidence without stopping so much as a second? inevitably i fall prety to scylla or charybdis, never navigating that strait successfully. but, i submit, this is really hard! i say it\u0026rsquo;s hard because in the case of insecurity, i have to construct one of two false beliefs: (1) that i am worse than i really am, or (2) that being worse in a given area than person X is of any real importance. likewise, when i am arrogant i must either be believing that (1) i am better than i really am, or (2) being better than person X is of any importance.\nthe question becomes: what is it about these four erroneous belief possibilities that is so magnetic? why does my mind, which has to work harder to believe falsehoods, run so naturally after any of these beliefs, unless i intentionally and pointedly make sure it does not?\nit\u0026rsquo;s a problem. but you are perhaps wondering/suggesting, \u0026ldquo;why be confident in the first place? just give in to your oscillation, as you call it\u0026rdquo;. well, apart from the fact that you sound rather like the proverbial devil-on-the-shoulder and that for methodological reasons i should chop off your tongue, i\u0026rsquo;ve heard that girls are attracted to confidence (in the same way, i\u0026rsquo;m told, that they are attracted to guys with girlfriends). therefore, all spiritual/philosophical considerations aside, confidence must have value.\n(i had to talk about girls somewhere in this post, as i\u0026rsquo;ve managed to in the last few and i didn\u0026rsquo;t want to break the trend. heh.)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/epistemology-of-humility/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethere is a fine line between insecurity and arrogance. this line is called \u0026ldquo;humble confidence\u0026rdquo;. we might also call it \u0026ldquo;realistic confidence\u0026rdquo;, since true humility is of course simply adherence to and coherence with truth\u0026ndash;what is actually the case. how could any other rendering be anything but \u0026ldquo;false\u0026rdquo; humility, by definition (to see the obviousness of this, examine all the stanford students who say \u0026ldquo;i did alright in high school\u0026rdquo;)? we might build in, of course, a certain amount of allowable subjectivism or ignorance on my part, and state only that humble confidence is believing about myself what is, \u003cstrong\u003eaccording to my best judgment\u003c/strong\u003e, true.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"epistemology of humility"},{"content":"today\u0026rsquo;s random thoughts (at my own request):\nquantum mechanics is wack. and i mean that seriously. but at least i\u0026rsquo;m finally learning matrix arithmetic and eigenvectors.\nonly 4 of 90 people in my buddy list are online right now. an all-time low. i feel as if the world ended but they forgot to tell me.\nmy world ended today when the stanford post office again proved its infallible inefficiency. cds sent out priority mail on monday still haven\u0026rsquo;t arrived. my weekend of new music i\u0026rsquo;ve been looking forward to all week is now shot.\npeterson\u0026rsquo;s sunset breeze is an amazing tobacco, especially when smoked in a peterson standard system pipe.\nin the absence of port, scotch, brandy, or some other legitimately refined liquid, mountain dew serves as a wonderful aperitif.\nis it just because i\u0026rsquo;m extremely narcissistic that i want my \u0026ldquo;perfect\u0026rdquo; girl to be like me in so many ways? (for instance, if i found someone who was a cigar connoisseur, a lover of good indie music, into rock climbing and/or running, a decent guitar player, deep-thinking enough to take well to philosophy [among other things], and appropriately stunning [we might as well add christian to the list, it being rather important], i would probably die of shock while running to ask her hand in marriage). and if that is so (meaning, if it is just because i am narcissistic), should i not actively try to disenforce my natural dissatisfaction with the women i found around me (dissatisfaction due to the fact that they\u0026rsquo;re not carbon copies of myself, basically)? but then what\u0026rsquo;s the difference between that and \u0026lsquo;settling\u0026rsquo; for something i\u0026rsquo;m not really really excited about? if we agree that my current standard for deciding whom to like is just plain dumb (and it is), then we run into the problem of coming up with another (since having no standards gets really dangerous). and as far as i can tell, any standard other than my current will fail to motivate me emotionally, and i\u0026rsquo;d feel i was liking someone out of duty. then again maybe that\u0026rsquo;s just what kant would approve of.\nminidiscs are beautiful. small, but with the promise of so much information. little sci-fi packets of aural goodness.\nwhy is it 3 am?\ni am in trouble now that i\u0026rsquo;ve discovered the joy of collecting dvds. cds is bad enough. i can\u0026rsquo;t spend the other half of my income on movies.\nwhat will i do when i graduate? i have no idea. what will my degrees get me? not sure. not true love, probably.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/top-10/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etoday\u0026rsquo;s random thoughts (at my own request):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003equantum mechanics is wack. and i mean that seriously. but at least i\u0026rsquo;m finally learning matrix arithmetic and eigenvectors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eonly 4 of 90 people in my buddy list are online right now. an all-time low. i feel as if the world ended but they forgot to tell me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003emy\u003c/em\u003e world ended today when the stanford post office again proved its infallible inefficiency. cds sent out priority mail on monday still haven\u0026rsquo;t arrived. my weekend of new music i\u0026rsquo;ve been looking forward to all week is now shot.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003epeterson\u0026rsquo;s sunset breeze is an amazing tobacco, especially when smoked in a peterson standard system pipe.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein the absence of port, scotch, brandy, or some other legitimately refined liquid, mountain dew serves as a wonderful aperitif.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eis it just because i\u0026rsquo;m extremely narcissistic that i want my \u0026ldquo;perfect\u0026rdquo; girl to be like me in so many ways? (for instance, if i found someone who was a cigar connoisseur, a lover of good indie music, into rock climbing and/or running, a decent guitar player, deep-thinking enough to take well to philosophy [among other things], and appropriately stunning [we might as well add christian to the list, it being rather important], i would probably die of shock while running to ask her hand in marriage). and if that is so (meaning, if it is just because i am narcissistic), should i not actively try to disenforce my natural dissatisfaction with the women i found around me (dissatisfaction due to the fact that they\u0026rsquo;re not carbon copies of myself, basically)? but then what\u0026rsquo;s the difference between that and \u0026lsquo;settling\u0026rsquo; for something i\u0026rsquo;m not really really excited about? if we agree that my current standard for deciding whom to like is just plain dumb (and it is), then we run into the problem of coming up with another (since having no standards gets really dangerous). and as far as i can tell, any standard other than my current will fail to motivate me emotionally, and i\u0026rsquo;d feel i was liking someone out of \u003cem\u003eduty\u003c/em\u003e. then again maybe that\u0026rsquo;s just what kant would approve of.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eminidiscs are beautiful. small, but with the promise of so much information. little sci-fi packets of aural goodness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewhy is it 3 am?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei am in trouble now that i\u0026rsquo;ve discovered the joy of collecting dvds. cds is bad enough. i can\u0026rsquo;t spend the other half of my income on movies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewhat will i do when i graduate? i have no idea. what will my degrees get me? not sure. not true love, probably.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e","title":"top 10"},{"content":"we\u0026rsquo;re now over a week into spring quarter, and i\u0026rsquo;ve surprisingly little to show for it. academically, i\u0026rsquo;m pretty much nowhere to be seen\u0026ndash;i skipped all but the first day of classes. socially, i\u0026rsquo;m the new kid in the eating club and so i sit alone. welcome to high school. physically, the only thing keeping me in shape is washing dishes for hours a day (oh, that\u0026rsquo;s what kitchen managers do\u0026hellip;), and eating a lot of those whiskey-filled mini chocolate bottles. somehow running 20 miles a week didn\u0026rsquo;t even come close to making the radar screen. mentally, i\u0026rsquo;m not sure i\u0026rsquo;m all there. i spend way too much time sitting in front of the computer trying to think of things to put in my task list and not enough time working on the things already there. spiritually, i\u0026rsquo;m inspired but weak and too lazy to get anything helpful started for more than a second. so i get into nice little cycles where it takes all my effort to break out of the tunnel vision, leaving no strength to actually change paths once i realize i\u0026rsquo;m on the wrong one.\ni question why, when i stand in the shower for over half an hour, it is absolutely impossible to get out a full sentence to god without some irrelevant, trivial, inane, or what\u0026rsquo;s more likely, naughty, thought intruding. or why i can sit and play so intently with my left ear lobe indefinitely yet not make it through a single chapter of the bible without finding myself rushing because of \u0026ldquo;time\u0026rdquo;.\nstill, i went snowboarding last thursday and was awed to the point of insane joy at the power and beauty of a snowstorm at the top of heavenly. it whited out my vision with an infinity of miniscule hexagons as i carved blindly downhill, exulting in the speed and recklessness and biting wind, praying that there were no sharp turns or looming cliffs. i felt closer to god when i realized more acutely how much my life was in his hands.\ni was also able to perform a rather kick-ass set at stanford\u0026rsquo;s 2003 art affair (which i helped to a small degree to put on, and for which i stayed up all night in white plaza guarding artwork from drunken marauders [after having not slept following snowboarding, no less]), using every sinful vocal chord to sing of things like its creator.\nalso of great importance, i ordered 13 cds, which i am looking forward to receiving with great delight.\nof little importance, on the other hand, are things like my job and school, which have been taking up all of my time. (that is, until the cds arrive)\noh, and a parting catch-22: i tend to think that i\u0026rsquo;m not ready for a romantic relationship until i\u0026rsquo;ve changed traits/habits x, y, and z about myself, but the best way i can think of to change x, y, and z is to become romantically involved. how\u0026rsquo;s that?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/04/are-you-a-drunken-marauder-ok-youll-have-to-leave/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewe\u0026rsquo;re now over a week into spring quarter, and i\u0026rsquo;ve surprisingly little to show for it. academically, i\u0026rsquo;m pretty much nowhere to be seen\u0026ndash;i skipped all but the first day of classes. socially, i\u0026rsquo;m the new kid in the eating club and so i sit alone. welcome to high school. physically, the only thing keeping me in shape is washing dishes for hours a day (oh, \u003cem\u003ethat\u0026rsquo;s\u003c/em\u003e what kitchen managers do\u0026hellip;), and eating a lot of those whiskey-filled mini chocolate bottles. somehow running 20 miles a week didn\u0026rsquo;t even come close to making the radar screen. mentally, i\u0026rsquo;m not sure i\u0026rsquo;m all there. i spend way too much time sitting in front of the computer trying to think of things to put in my task list and not enough time working on the things already there. spiritually, i\u0026rsquo;m inspired but weak and too lazy to get anything helpful started for more than a second. so i get into nice little cycles where it takes all my effort to break out of the tunnel vision, leaving no strength to actually change paths once i realize i\u0026rsquo;m on the wrong one.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"are you a drunken marauder? ok, you'll have to leave..."},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;the shorter end of a long week\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;the continuation of the last really long post which you should read if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already, and don\u0026rsquo;t forget to look at the pictures\u0026rdquo;\ni\u0026rsquo;d like to point out, in response to imagined complaints over the length of part I, that this spring break\u0026rsquo;s blog had only 2 parts, not 5, like that of last spring break (some parts in march, some in april, in the archives). speaking of those posts, i went back and read them yesterday, and was struck in particular by the fact that it\u0026rsquo;s now been over a year since emily and i broke up. i felt a pang of remembered sadness as i looked over that day in particular, and a fresh sort of guilt in realizing what a bad, or more accurately, non-existent, friend i\u0026rsquo;ve been to her since then. being fully and purposely occuppied with life here has that disadvantage for my non-californian friends. anyway, a lot has happened in this year of singleness, and i think i\u0026rsquo;ve certainly grown in a lot of ways because of it. but back to now\u0026hellip;\nso, friday, after waking up and spending some time unpacking and getting all the UK trip expenses and finances sorted out (we did great with money and had about as cheap a week in england as one can have while still enjoying oneself), i hopped in my beautiful little car (which probably could use a name\u0026ndash;female, of course, because it is cute and small, with a little bit of that vicious edge i look for in women. suggestions welcome!) and drove down to mt. hermon, which is in the mountains just west of santa cruz.\nthere i stayed in the house of some family friends, the millers, who are like my grandparents here. they were gone for the evening so i availed myself of the most comfortable bed in the world, which happened to be in the guest room. being slightly below ground, it was dark and cool, and i fell asleep around 4:30 in the afternoon, only to awake to the delicious smell of sunlight the next morning, at around 7:30am. not only was i exhilarated at having beat my previous sleep record by just over an hour, i felt gloriously refreshed and aware! to top it off, mrs. miller made me a wonderful breakfast of eggs, bacon, fruit, toast, and milk.\nthen, when i thought the day had nowhere to go but downhill, mrs. miller suggested that since it was a nice day i go to santa cruz. the beach! what an obviously perfect plan! i hadn\u0026rsquo;t thought of it, because all my previous trips to santa cruz had greeted me with gray skies and cold winds. this day, however, i was able to take off my shirt and drive with the windows down and the sunroof open. i zoomed down the mountain road to santa cruz, where i meandered joyfully without much in the way of direction before finding a parking spot right at seabright beach.\nthe day, as i said, was beautiful! it must have been around 80 degrees and completely sunny. i laid and tanned and watched people with their dogs and other people with their kids and even more people with their significant others. i was too tired to nap, so i read some, but mostly sat and thought and prayed for direction and discernment in the upcoming quarter. all told, i allowed the sun to kiss me (though on that day it could more properly be described as making out) for at least two hours. beautiful.\nwhile at the beach (or was it before?) i made a list of goals for spring quarter. this is mostly a joke, since making lists of goals has never been known to help me actually do anything, but i thought it might help me gain perspective. here they are, in no particular order:\n- read the word every day\n- find a bible study method that helps me grow and isn\u0026rsquo;t just reading the bible over and over\n- climb 3 times a week\n- run 16-20 miles a week\n- climb at least one outdoors 5.10c or higher\n- flexibility training! (be able to do the splits by the end of the quarter?)\n- start on philosophy papers at least a week (!) before they are due\n- \\\\ \\\\/\\\\\\\\ (sorry, that one\u0026rsquo;s for me alone)\n- don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid to go on dates\n- hang out with small group friends outside of small group\n- read a non-school book on average a few hours a week\n- sleep 8-9 hours a night\n- wake up before 10am on a daily basis\n- learn german\n- work on enaselvai an hour/week?\n- set apart 30 min/day for prayer/devotions\n- be intentional about my new motto, \u0026ldquo;less sarcasm, more love!\u0026rdquo;\nso, there it is. it\u0026rsquo;s probably not even physically possible to do all these things along with school, jobs, and my other commitments, but whatever. we\u0026rsquo;re thinking big.\nwhen i got back to mt. hermon it was late afternoon, and i had nothing to do before dinner so i gave my car (she needs a name!) a careful and thorough wash and cleaning, to make her feel happy inside and out (i also bought her premium gas, just this once, since she got me up the hills to mt. hermon without dying, even though we were out of fuel).\ndinner, at my request, was pasta with chicken and broccoli, followed by home-made apple pie. clearly, the millers knew how to set me on the right road to starting the quarter well! shortly after dinner i said my thank-yous and goodbyes, and drove home, taking the 17 through the mountains fast, but not recklessly, like the skilled racecar driver i was pretending to be.\nthe next day, sunday, i got up and spontaneously went for a run around the lake a few times, since the day was so beautiful! the rest of the morning was filled with errands and endless headaches at the mountainview walmart, which always ends up being the last place on earth i want to be after i leave it. still, i got the stuff i needed and spent the afternoon again in the sun, sitting on the balcony, reading and smoking my reading pipe. the scent of irish whiskey and coffee filled the air and i felt at peace.\nsome of my suitemates got back from peru that afternoon, so we planned a barbecue for the evening, and bought supplies. the barbecue was executed flawlessly, to the satiation of all present, and after that and a showing of the \u0026ldquo;psychological thriller\u0026rdquo; insomniac in the suite, the most relaxing weekend in a long time was over.\nspring quarter 2003, bring it on!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/spring-break-2003-part-ii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;the shorter end of a long week\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;the continuation of the last really long post which you should read if you haven\u0026rsquo;t already, and don\u0026rsquo;t forget to look at the pictures\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;d like to point out, in response to imagined complaints over the length of part I, that this spring break\u0026rsquo;s blog had only 2 parts, not 5, like that of last spring break (some parts in march, some in april, in the archives). speaking of those posts, i went back and read them yesterday, and was struck in particular by the fact that it\u0026rsquo;s now been over a year since emily and i broke up. i felt a pang of remembered sadness as i looked over that day in particular, and a fresh sort of guilt in realizing what a bad, or more accurately, non-existent, friend i\u0026rsquo;ve been to her since then. being fully and purposely occuppied with life here has that disadvantage for my non-californian friends. anyway, a lot has happened in this year of singleness, and i think i\u0026rsquo;ve certainly grown in a lot of ways because of it. but back to now\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break 2003, part II"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;a week of adventuring\u0026rdquo;, or \u0026ldquo;a somewhat non-uninteresting blog entry\u0026rdquo;\nnote: i will include links to pictures throughout the extremely long narrative. you will recognize these links because they will be within brackets\u0026ndash;square brackets, like \u0026ldquo;[\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;]\u0026rdquo;. there may be no other designation that these are links, so keep an eye peeled. pictures are at 35% size and are in .jpg format\nanother note\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;the crew\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;the guys\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;us\u0026rdquo;, or other similarly first-or-third-person plural designators usually refer to: dan urban, joey carucci, and myself. dan you all should know already\u0026ndash;he is my suitemate, was my roommate last year, really likes weezer, and can make cool crap with metal using lathes and stuff. joey carucci has long black hair, is the most inquisitive/challenging person i\u0026rsquo;ve met, and is without a doubt the most italian-looking of the three of us. lastly, i, of course, am simply me.\nwe left thursday night for the airport with 2 small bags apiece\u0026ndash;carry-on, naturally. true adventurers travel light. we got there, surprisingly, on time, and our flight went without a hitch. i started reading dave egger\u0026rsquo;s a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. more on that later. after landing in new york, we deplaned, went through another security checkpoint every five feet (where they decided different things concerning the permissibility of vaguely weapon-shaped objects in our possession, like keys or cellular phones), helped a spanish-speaking woman find her way to her gate, discussed scientific theories which postulate unobservable entities or philosophically suspect notions like multiple universes, and boarded our 777 to london.\nagain the flight went smoothly and we got to london about 8:30pm local time, where we raced to customs ahead of the other passengers, went through, and met my parents, who were waiting for us. we had realized some weeks earlier that they and my sister would be in england around the same time as us, and thought it would be cool to hang out with them for the few days our stays overlapped. as it turned out, this was a tremendous blessing, because of their helping us with transportation and housing.\nthey drove us from london northwest-ish to horsleys green, a little hamlet next to a little town called stokenchurch, which is adjacent to the perhaps-better-known city of high wycombe. horsleys green is the location of the wycliffe uk headquarters, and because of my parents\u0026rsquo; affiliation with wycliffe, we were able to stay at the wycliffe campus there, in dorm-style housing, for as modest a fee as can be found.\ndan, joey, and i shared a room, which we put to immediate use because of jet lag. the next morning we woke up earlier than desired (jet lag again), but breakfast was served at the bright hour of 7:30am, so we met my parents and sister at the dining hall for a veritable feast of assorted grain cereals and the liquidy, goopy, yogurt which seems to be the popular thing there. afterwards, the 6 of us piled into the rental van my parents had scored at an incredible bargain, and took off for bath, england\u0026ndash;a 2-hour drive.\non the way to bath, we took a short detour and stopped at stonehenge, an incredible site in the middle of nowhere, with only the grazing sheep and tourists to keep it company. of course, the lack of nearby civilization did not stop someone from charging visitors an exorbitant fee to get within a chain-link fence boundary. being true adventurers, we spurned this commercialism and viewed the literally monolithic structures from outside the gate. [ stonehenge through the chain-link fence] [ some intrepid travelers (from left to right) a. looking cute, b. gazing at stonehenge in the distance, and c. fiddling with something]\nas if having just stopped for a bathroom break, we left stonehenge after the requisite moment of awe and continued to bath. some time later, a most horrific thing happened. i was in the back seat, listening to the new further seems forever cd with my beautifully expensive noise-cancelling headphones, when all of us in the car noticed a huge bird step into the road. now, this bird has an extraordinarily long neck. it\u0026rsquo;s not a chicken or a turkey or a goose or a swan or anything else i normally see\u0026ndash;to me it looked like a pheasant on steroids and with some giraffe ancestors. anyway, the bird is apparently also very stupid because it begins to cross the road, which, being in england, is being driven upon very very quickly, by us, who are, incidentally, in a van with a very low front bumper. the next moments were full of honking and cursing and swerving not quite into oncoming traffic, all to no avail: with a great thud the bird was hewn down like wheat to a very dull but very fast and violent scythe. and yet this is not the whole of it: hardly daring, i turned around and attempted to survey the damage. what met my eyes made me involuntarily scream with horror, agony, and excitement: the bird had exploded into a million feathers, as if a bomb had been planted inside it! they drifted around in crazy patterns, as their wearer had done in life, a tribute to the end of a meaningless existence. but enough of picture-perfect roadkill.\nwe got to bath, found parking, and bought some lunch. then my family split while we guys toured the ancient roman bathhouse which is bath\u0026rsquo;s namesake. [ joey and dan looking at the baths with the handy electronic tour guides] it was cool, but my third time seeing it, so a little boring. by now it was late afternoon, but for 6 world travelers the day was yet beginning! we trucked back to the van, where i was tempted to paint one bird on the driver\u0026rsquo;s side door, in hopes that we would continue to score more hits.\nfrom bath we made our way to a little town called castle combe, which is the most quaint town i\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen in my life. we ate dinner there. here are some pictures. [ side street in castle combe] [ the 4 kids in the town centre] [ a lot of the doors had these cool locks and handles] [ another view of part of the town]\nthat was day 1, and it ended as i fell asleep in the back of the van on the way back to horsleys green, tired from who knows what, full from good solid fare at the castle combe pub, and still savoring the two pints of thick local beer that somehow found their way down my throat without much in the way of resistance.\nday 2 began early again, as we repeated the same morning routine as day 1, with the addition of bacon. also, the three guys took a walk into the wood adjacent to the wycliffe centre, which is one of the things i always make sure to do when i stay there. the morning was crisp and surprisingly clear (as were all our days in england, to our great fortune). [ part of the wood, with some lens flare action] i saw a peacock, too. shortly thereafter, the guys and my family drove north to warwick, so that the three studly guys could see warwick castle while \u0026rsquo;the fam\u0026rsquo; went antique shopping or something. all i really need to say about warwick castle is that it is an old castle made into a tourist stop, and it is quite amazing. we paid our entry fee and walked around the place for a few hours, which is when i took these pictures. [ the big tower at one corner of the castle] [ shot of the surrounding countryside from another tower, through an arrow slit]\ni believe it was at warwick during a time of sitting around that dan and joey and i decided that pretty english girls (they should be called \u0026rsquo;lasses\u0026rsquo;, not girls, of course) are really hot, owing to the accent. on the other hand, we concluded that there were less beautiful english girls on average than american girls. usa represent! still, if you took identical twins with a good amount of future hotness and separated them at birth, bringing one to the states and one to england, and if they grew up to look exactly the same, the brit would be about one and a half times as hot.\nanyway, after warwick we rejoined my family and drove to the cotswolds, an area of england consisting of hills (downs), trees, and picturesque countryside (much like other areas of england, in fact). we stopped at stratford-upon-avon to pay lipservice to shakespeare in the form of looking at the house of his one-time wife, anne hathaway. [ anne hathaway\u0026rsquo;s house, a tourist attraction] [ i wanted to take a picture of myself in front of that house] from there we drove to bourton-on-the-water, where we had high tea at a cool place we\u0026rsquo;d visited before, and where a few of our party payed to see a model of bourton-on-the-water, but a few more sensible (ahem) of the party went to a pub and each had a pint of guinness.\nwe drove (all this driving! now you see the benefit of hanging out with my family, as opposed to finding how to get to all these places via public transit) back to horsleys green for dinner. in preparation for the massive amount of grading i would have to do that night, i had another 2 pints of guinness with my meal. ah.\ndid i mention grading? yes, i did. in fact, i had 88 bluebooks to grade\u0026ndash;the results of the final exam for phil 78, the class i TAed winter quarter. as the exam was on the day i left, and as the grades for my students were due while i was going to be away, i was forced to carry the exams with me overseas to grade. and grade i did, for hours and hours that night\u0026ndash;examining 88 long essay questions is no joke. i finished sometime around 2:30am and e-mailed the grades to my prof, finally completing all duties related to winter quarter 2003.\nand so we slide into day 3, where my parents and sister leave and the guys strike off on our own! we had breakfast and said our goodbyes to my family, then check ourselves out of the wycliffe centre. a bus stop was a short ways from there so we walked to it with our bags and caught a 10:30 bus to oxford. on this bus i finished dave egger\u0026rsquo;s book. i\u0026rsquo;m still not quite sure what i think of it. at points i was hilariously engaged and enthralled with his style, and at other points the self-awareness grew too heightened even for such an introspect as myself. moreover, the book was about his life and so sometimes i caught myself not caring when things got a little slow or boring. to his credit, these moments were few. perhaps the thing which brought the book closest to my heart was that most of the events took place in the bay area. his prose, his ruminations about berkeley culture, and his pinpointing of the spirit of the age, even a decade ago, gelled remarkably well with thoughts and feelings i\u0026rsquo;ve had about this weird place. it was just fun to recognize half of the places he talked about, and even be acquainted well with a few.\nonce in oxford, we toted our luggage to the backpacker\u0026rsquo;s hostel we were to stay at that night. the hostel was a funky sort of place (in fact, owned by a company called \u0026ldquo;funky hostels\u0026rdquo;) where we stayed in a co-ed room with many bunkbeds and too many not-hot girls hanging around in their bras. anyway, we dropped our bags off and started our day of walking around oxford. i suppose we did just about everything worth doing. we stopped in for a while at my favorite store there: frederick tranter\u0026rsquo;s pipe shop. i gave in to various impulses and added two beautiful pipes to my collection: a peterson standard system 303, and a reading briar (a long-stemmed pipe), as well as a six-seater rack and some exclusive tobacco. [ my 3 pipes (the one in the middle is from frederick tranter\u0026rsquo;s a few years ago) and rack]\nwe also took a tour of christ church college [ looking up from a small courtyard in the college], which they used various parts of for filming the harry potter movies. [ me standing on the main hogwarts staircase] since dan also bought a new pipe at tranter\u0026rsquo;s, we sat for a while in front of the college and smoked and read. as it was getting on in hours, we made our way north to the eagle and child pub, the selfsame establishment wherein c.s. lewis, j.r.r. tolkien, and other members of the inklings met regularly to discuss whatever they discussed. there we met a friend of dan\u0026rsquo;s who was studying at oxford and had dinner (i believe i had 2 pints of guinness\u0026ndash;no, one of bass and one of guinness). in fact, we sat in the very small room where lewis and tolkien sat, ate, drank and smoked their pipes. thus, to round out the roll-call of habits we had to break out our pipes and smoke a bowl (of tobacco) for our patron saints.\nlater that night we went to the stanford house on high street, where we randomly caught up with a few friends who were there at oxford for their last night before leaving for spring break and coming back to stanford. i hadn\u0026rsquo;t expected anyone to be there at all, so it was fun to see some kids from my freshman dorm. it was also fun to use their computer cluster. anyway, it was time for bed and we left. the night at the funky hostel went without incident or worse, nudity, so let that be enough for day 3.\nday 4 was packed full of stuff, so let\u0026rsquo;s look at the highlights: first we took a long bus from oxford to london, then bought tube passes for the day at the earl\u0026rsquo;s court underground. our first trip was to trafalgar square, where we met kyle van houtan, a former cornerstone intern. he was in england for a bio-something conference at cambridge, or something. with him in tow we tubed to paddington, got lost, then found our hotel so we could drop off our suitcases. then we took the underground downtown to the westminster/parliament/big ben sort of area. [ the guys in front of westminster abbey] we took our picture in front of westminster abbey, and i noticed that in most of my pictures of buildings the sun was in just the wrong place. oh well.\nanyway, lunching commenced shortly thereafter at a pub named \u0026ldquo;finnegan\u0026rsquo;s wake\u0026rdquo;, an utterly cool monniker which should be someone\u0026rsquo;s band name. after lunch we breezed by some more important city monuments, then back to trafalgar square to meet kyle\u0026rsquo;s traveling companion who did not show. we used the opportunity to go into the national gallery and spent 15-20 minutes looking at the most gorgeous monets, picassos, van goghs, seurats, and whatever other mind-numbingly beautiful originals they had there. if i worked in london i would definitely take my lunch break at that place, in order to let my eyes feast on the fruit of that train of geniuses whose blood must have something a little more than human in it.\nthen, it being kyle\u0026rsquo;s time to take his train to cambridge, we went back to the hotel, got out his luggage, and bid him adieu. then we steeled ourselves for the walking that lied ahead, and went to work dissecting the town with our feet. using the tube only when convenient, we must have walked between five and ten miles that afternoon, seeing just about everything left to see in the city. [ sign near the tower of london that i found humorous] [ one third of a gigantic piece of art in the tate museum of modern art. it was the most aweing thing i saw the whole day. i was astounded. go there and see it.] [ the sunset off a bridge near the same musem]\nwe ended our day at harrod\u0026rsquo;s knightsbridge, where dan and joey bought gifts for family and i bought a decent bottle of port for the suite. then an all-too-expensive dinner at a fabulous underground night-club/pizza place nearby, with beautiful portuguese waitresses. this was the only day i did not drink at least 2 pints of good beer, mostly because the three of us shared a bottle of a french cabernet at dinner, thus eliminating the feasibility of such consumption. after dinner we zombied back through the tube and collapsed in our beds at the hotel, which, frustratingly, was out of hot water for the evening, prohibiting showers for the second night in a row. my anger, however, melted into dreamless sleep quickly enough.\nat glorious last! we have reached day 5\u0026ndash;the last full day in england. after waking up and feeling old angers flame up afresh at the realization that lukewarm was the best the shower could do, we walked and tubed from paddington to king\u0026rsquo;s cross station. there we bought train tickets to cambridge and our train left shortly (there is a platform 9 3/4, by the way). our day in cambridge was probably my favorite of them all\u0026ndash;we toured king\u0026rsquo;s college and cathedral (more awe, of course), had lunch at a smart little place nearby, and even went punting on the cam. this was probably the most physically strenuous hour of the trip, as we switched, between the three of us, poling our little boat down, then up, stream. dan was by far the best at punting and using the long pole as a rudder, and i caught on reasonably well. joey, on the other hand, couldn\u0026rsquo;t punt or steer to save his life, so we gave him a paddle, which his massive pectoral muscles put to good use. scenery along the river was gorgeous. [ me at the prow of our boat, emma, with the mathematical bridge in the background] [ dan punting and joey fiddling, again] [ some nice scenery along the cam] [ joey and i in the boat]\nlater that day we stumbled upon a college with signs for the conference our friend kyle was supposed to be speaking at, so we wandered inside and, lo and behold, kyle had just finished his presentation and was taking q\u0026amp;a! when he came back to sit down we grabbed him and went outside to talk for a while. it was, obviously, cool that we had seen him again, and we made plans to meet for a drink after dinner at the eagle, the oldest pub in cambridge (and maybe england?). we putzed around cambridge some more, hung out in the cambridge university press bookstore (this is a big deal), then went to our last dinner in england. we sat outside in the beautiful, crisply cold evening, praising god that we\u0026rsquo;d had 100% beautiful days and no rain the entire trip (this is unheard of).\nkyle met up with us as planned, and we talked, then went back to st. catharine\u0026rsquo;s college, where he was staying, to play pool and foosball until it came time to take our train back to london. it might be interesting that this day was the day of most alcohol consumption for me on the trip, as i had a glass of wine with lunch, 2 pints of beer with dinner (old speckled hen and guinness), and some blue-raspberry-tasting smirnoff ice ripoff while playing pool, which i should have been ashamed to drink but wasn\u0026rsquo;t.\neventually we said our goodbyes to kyle, fairly ran the 25 minutes back to the train station, and caught our train. we stumbled exhausted into our london hotel room around midnight. the next morning we rose a bit late, ate breakfast, packed, and called a coach to take us to the airport. as when dealing with all taxi-or-coach drivers anywhere, i gave it a less than even chance that we would make it to our destination alive, but thankfully our luck held out. mine continued to hold out, and i was upgraded to business class for the flight to chicago (joey and dan, unfortunately, had to stay in coach). it\u0026rsquo;s hard to overstate how really important this kind of upgrade is on a long international flight.\nwell, the flight went smoothly, as did our connection in chicago, and sooner or later we found ourselves breathing san francisco air again, at about 9:30pm on thursday night, when exactly a week before we had been sitting in the same terminal waiting for our plane to depart. being more attuned to public transportation after the trip wherein we used it frequently, we took a bus home from SFO (only $1.25 a person!), though it took about an hour and a half.\nas with all international trips, it will take some time for all that has happened to settle in my mind, so i can discover whether or not i\u0026rsquo;ve come back changed in any significant way. what i know for sure is that spending a week with dan and joey was great, and i got to know each of them much better.\nand with that, the week of adventuring was officially concluded. spring break 2003 part II, or \u0026ldquo;two days of sleep and relaxation\u0026rdquo;, will follow soon.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/spring-break-2003-part-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;a week of adventuring\u0026rdquo;, or \u0026ldquo;a somewhat non-uninteresting blog entry\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003enote: i will include links to pictures throughout the extremely long narrative. you will recognize these links because they will be within brackets\u0026ndash;square brackets, like \u0026ldquo;[\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;]\u0026rdquo;. there may be no other designation that these are links, so keep an eye peeled. pictures are at 35% size and are in .jpg format\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eanother note\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;the crew\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;the guys\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;us\u0026rdquo;, or other similarly first-or-third-person plural designators usually refer to: dan urban, joey carucci, and myself. dan you all should know already\u0026ndash;he is my suitemate, was my roommate last year, really likes weezer, and can make cool crap with metal using lathes and stuff. joey carucci has long black hair, is the most inquisitive/challenging person i\u0026rsquo;ve met, and is without a doubt the most italian-looking of the three of us. lastly, i, of course, am simply me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break 2003, part I"},{"content":"i am back in the states! everything went fantastically. i\u0026rsquo;ll write an extremely long blog entry about the aforementioned week of adventuring soon. for now, i am off to mt. hermon in the santa cruz mountains to stay with some family friends for the night. ah, the glories of having my own car.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/not-ready-for-spring-quarter-just-yet/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am back in the states! everything went fantastically. i\u0026rsquo;ll write an extremely long blog entry about the aforementioned week of adventuring soon. for now, i am off to mt. hermon in the santa cruz mountains to stay with some family friends for the night. ah, the glories of having my own car.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"not ready for spring quarter just yet"},{"content":"well, i\u0026rsquo;m off to the UK for a week of adventuring. see you when i get back, and everyone, be safe.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/england-2003/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewell, i\u0026rsquo;m off to the UK for a week of adventuring. see you when i get back, and everyone, be safe.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"england 2003"},{"content":"hello, war. it\u0026rsquo;s been a long time. and cnn\u0026rsquo;s technical advances will bring you that much closer.\n\u0026ldquo;Tune into CNN: you can have the war, narrated by the indefatigable Dr. Sanjay Gupta at camp Iwo Jima somewhere [he can\u0026rsquo;t say where] in the northern Kuwaiti desert roughly 2km from the borders of Iraq, broadcast live into your living room! Hear about the mysterious possibly-chemically-or-biologically-armed missile which made a noise and caused camp Iwo Jima marines to put on gas masks until the all clear was given! See live pictures of a random street in Baghdad where nothing happens! More false alarms and top-secret U.S. war plans to be internationally blabbed to God knows who [and we don\u0026rsquo;t care!], after the break. [Closed Captioning provided by Flonase: \u0026lsquo;Flo, for your every nasal need\u0026rsquo;]\u0026rdquo;\nmay god protect us from treating the conflict as the next and greatest in a long line of increasingly sickening reality tv programs.\n=|=|=\n\u0026ldquo;This\u0026hellip;this is an idea. I hope you guys understand\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; David Bazan, before singing:\nThere once was a time one could flee to the north,\nBut Canada\u0026rsquo;s not what she used to be.\nBoycott the war? Well, she could not afford to\nThanks to the new American king.\nit looks like we\u0026rsquo;re not quite there yet, but getting closer.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/of-up-and-coming-monarchs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ehello, war. it\u0026rsquo;s been a long time. and cnn\u0026rsquo;s technical advances will bring you that much closer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Tune into CNN: you can have the war, narrated by the indefatigable Dr. Sanjay Gupta at camp Iwo Jima somewhere [he can\u0026rsquo;t say where] in the northern Kuwaiti desert roughly 2km from the borders of Iraq, broadcast live into \u003cem\u003eyour\u003c/em\u003e living room! Hear about the mysterious possibly-chemically-or-biologically-armed missile which made a noise and caused camp Iwo Jima marines to put on gas masks until the all clear was given! See live pictures of a random street in Baghdad where nothing happens! More false alarms and top-secret U.S. war plans to be internationally blabbed to God knows who [and we don\u0026rsquo;t care!], after the break. [Closed Captioning provided by Flonase: \u0026lsquo;Flo, for your every nasal need\u0026rsquo;]\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"of up and coming monarchs"},{"content":"as of today, winter quarter 2003 is over. this marks the end of my 8th quarter of instruction as an undergraduate at stanford, and my 2nd as a graduate student. without a doubt, this was the hardest quarter of my stanford career, and possibly my life.\ntonight i stood outside in the cold with dan, smoking tobacco mixed by an old man in st. augustine, florida [memories of home], in a pipe bought years ago in oxford, england [rite of passage]. i put my hood over my face and allowed the beautiful scent from the pipe to drift up and be caught in it, obscuring my vision with an aroma that did its best to take me far away from here. i looked back over the quarter, and saw a bleak landscape that i never realized was so heartless.\nlarge distances can deceive, and as i gazed back upon the ash plain that was this quarter\u0026rsquo;s journey, it didn\u0026rsquo;t seem half as wide as it really was. landmarks looked compressed\u0026ndash;small, and close together\u0026ndash;further confounding the sense of how far i\u0026rsquo;ve come.\nstill, it\u0026rsquo;s not the distance that is most ineffable\u0026ndash; where i have spent all this time getting to is equally unknowable. what did i do this quarter? i\u0026rsquo;m not so sure\u0026hellip;it all seems so insignificant now. i took three classes; i was a TA; i didn\u0026rsquo;t exercise; i didn\u0026rsquo;t eat well; i did go to my classes for once in my life; i still procrastinated on papers, and to a point never before imagined; i put out a CD that i really love but that no one here seems too excited about [of course, expectations for stanford people are low to non-existent]; i took some small steps forward in my relationship with god, and made some incredibly dumb decisions in the same; i took my chances and decided to like a girl\u0026ndash;decided to actually do something about it instead of internalizing every damn feeling\u0026ndash;only to get shut down, for what are no doubt very good, if very unwanted, reasons; i decided that inconsistencies run deeper in me than i ever realized; i admitted to myself for the first time that i\u0026rsquo;m a habitual liar; i drank on more occasions than perhaps i would have liked; i learned that two is the perfect number to go along with the object known as the 15oz. guinness draught; i smoked on less occasions than i needed to; i didn\u0026rsquo;t play guitar enough; i suppose i learned some stuff, but mostly that bullshitting papers doesn\u0026rsquo;t glorify my creator; i became increasingly scared of my trajectory, but at the same time increasingly uninterested in where everyone else seems to be heading\u0026hellip;\nthe question stands: where have i gotten in all this? what have i achieved? altitude, perhaps. a bit of a view. the dignity that can only be bought with pain. the right, at least, to throw my cloak around my shoulders, wrap it tight against myself, alone. the right to stop moving, to turn and feel the biting wind color my surveyance. the right to look at the rocky, ash-ridden plain and smile, seeing god\u0026rsquo;s grace strangely supervenient on this graceless terrain. the privilege, finally, to turn back around and start again with hope that it is the next bend which brings a new world.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/backwards-glance/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eas of today, winter quarter 2003 is over. this marks the end of my 8th quarter of instruction as an undergraduate at stanford, and my 2nd as a graduate student. without a doubt, this was the hardest quarter of my stanford career, and possibly my life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etonight i stood outside in the cold with dan, smoking tobacco mixed by an old man in st. augustine, florida [memories of home], in a pipe bought years ago in oxford, england [rite of passage]. i put my hood over my face and allowed the beautiful scent from the pipe to drift up and be caught in it, obscuring my vision with an aroma that did its best to take me far away from here. i looked back over the quarter, and saw a bleak landscape that i never realized was so heartless.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"backwards glance"},{"content":"the show on thursday went well. i feel that i played at least as well as i usually do. i only broke one string and it was while tuning, so disasters were kept to a minimum. i was touched also that many of my friends showed up for the cd release party, who might not usually come to one of my shows.\nof course, i only sold 6 cds, so i\u0026rsquo;m not really well on the way to paying back my investors. still, i have hope.\ni spent all day yesterday at beefeater\u0026rsquo;s eating club (the one of which i will be kitchen manager next quarter and next year), helping to set up for their special dinner. really, \u0026ldquo;helping\u0026rdquo; should be in scare quotes, because i was there much longer than any of the current managers, and between myself and the two other new managers we basically did the whole job for the current managers (which is, as they say, ghetto). still, it was good practice for when it\u0026rsquo;s our show to run next year.\nin other news, jonathanlipps.com has been taken down since all the relevant music info is at splendourhyaline.com. i\u0026rsquo;m thinking of ideas for what to put up in its place, when i get some time to do some more designing.\nthis thursday is approaching rapidly, when dan, joey, and myself will take off for the UK. i\u0026rsquo;m a little bit nervous, because, while i\u0026rsquo;ve been overseas quite a few times (and to england 4 or 5 times), i\u0026rsquo;ve never been in charge of a trip with other people before. i suppose that technically i am not \u0026ldquo;in charge\u0026rdquo;, but i\u0026rsquo;ve done all the planning and made all the reservations, so i feel that if our time absolutely sucks it will be my fault. but we\u0026rsquo;re laid-back guys, and we\u0026rsquo;ll have fun whatever happens, so no worries.\nof course, before thursday gets here there are about a million things i have to do. i have a 12 page paper to write by monday (which i haven\u0026rsquo;t yet even done any reading for), a final on monday, 24 final papers to grade, and then, on thursday, between noon and when i leave, 25 finals to grade for medical ethics. somewhere in there i should also do laundry, since by my calculations it\u0026rsquo;s now been over a month. my room has a decidedly unpleasant odor when the window is closed and there\u0026rsquo;s no fresh air.\nit\u0026rsquo;s a beautiful day today, and i wish i could unclench my heart and my will, and go enjoy it. i\u0026rsquo;d love to go running. or maybe not. it would be nice to just sit in the sun, at this special time of the year when there is actually a greenness here that could be called lush, and look at the trees and the foothills. but no, i have to stay here tied up in stressful knots, cursing my procrastination and struggling to get done on time.\nsoon\u0026hellip;\nvirtual disc on spin: we have the facts and we\u0026rsquo;re voting yes | death cab for cutie\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/stressful-knots/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe show on thursday went well. i feel that i played at least as well as i usually do. i only broke one string and it was while tuning, so disasters were kept to a minimum. i was touched also that many of my friends showed up for the cd release party, who might not usually come to one of my shows.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eof course, i only sold 6 cds, so i\u0026rsquo;m not really well on the way to paying back my investors. still, i have hope.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"stressful knots"},{"content":"i am now officially done with 2 out of the 3 classes i am taking for credit. in order to reach this end, i spent all day \u0026ldquo;working\u0026rdquo; on the term paper for my Kant class (had to be around 15pp, due tomorrow). in reality, i didn\u0026rsquo;t even start thinking of a topic until after lunch. then i read the portion of the book which spoke to that topic (for the first time). then i took a nap. then i had a dinner meeting. by the time i put virtual pen to virtual paper, it was 7:45 pm. understand, at that point no planning or thought had been given to the argument.\nit is now 3:15 am, 7.5 hours later, and i am done. the paper is 14 full pages. during my time writing the paper, i procrastinated a total of 4 times (procrastination was defined as leaving my desk for more than 10 minutes at a time), including one longish trip to the eating club for sustenance. during those 7.5 hours, i did 120 pull-ups on the shower bar in the bathroom (in multiples of 10) in order to stay awake.\ni now have 7.5 hours until i have class and the paper is due. i am extremely grateful to god that i can now use this time to sleep! in fact, i\u0026rsquo;m amazed by god\u0026rsquo;s grace in allowing me to finish the paper so quickly\u0026ndash;taking out breaks, i was writing at a pace of over 2 pages an hour (of philosophy! on kant of all things!) of course, before i get too excited, i have to realize that my paper sucks. it seriously isn\u0026rsquo;t very well thought-out, nor is it obvious what i\u0026rsquo;m trying to argue until close to the end (bad, bad). still, since the paper is on kant, i had no hope from the beginning that i could say anything coherent about any topic from the critique at all. thus my prayer this morning was that god would enable me to get something down, in a timely manner, that would help me pass the class. and that\u0026rsquo;s exactly what he did! now, of course, it is up to him what grade comes back. but i\u0026rsquo;m not worried.\nnow all that\u0026rsquo;s left is one more term paper due (only 12 pages this time), and one final on monday. that, and of course about a bazillion and twenty papers to grade and things to do for the class that i\u0026rsquo;m TAing.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/im-a-paper-writing-stud/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am now officially done with 2 out of the 3 classes i am taking for credit. in order to reach this end, i spent all day \u0026ldquo;working\u0026rdquo; on the term paper for my Kant class (had to be around 15pp, due tomorrow). in reality, i didn\u0026rsquo;t even start thinking of a topic until after lunch. then i read the portion of the book which spoke to that topic (for the first time). then i took a nap. then i had a dinner meeting. by the time i put virtual pen to virtual paper, it was 7:45 pm. understand, at that point no planning or thought had been given to the argument.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i'm a paper-writing stud"},{"content":"behold: www.splendourhyaline.com\ndownload mp3s and buy the CD! (unless you live in stanford, in which case talk to me, or orlando, in which case talk to rachel, or gainesville, in which case talk to david or jason killingsworth about how to get the CD without paying s\u0026amp;h).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/splendourhyalinecom/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ebehold: \u003ca href=\"http://www.splendourhyaline.com\"\u003ewww.splendourhyaline.com\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edownload mp3s and buy the CD! (unless you live in stanford, in which case talk to me, or orlando, in which case talk to rachel, or gainesville, in which case talk to david or jason killingsworth about how to get the CD without paying s\u0026amp;h).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"splendourhyaline.com"},{"content":"procrastination for end-term papers and finals is really good for my music career. i\u0026rsquo;ve already written one song in the past few days and i\u0026rsquo;m about to start another. hopefully i\u0026rsquo;ll play at least one at my show on thursday! don\u0026rsquo;t forget to come to the CoHo this thurs\u0026hellip;i go on about 10:15pm.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/show-this-thursday/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eprocrastination for end-term papers and finals is really good for my music career. i\u0026rsquo;ve already written one song in the past few days and i\u0026rsquo;m about to start another. hopefully i\u0026rsquo;ll play at least one at my show on thursday! don\u0026rsquo;t forget to come to the CoHo this thurs\u0026hellip;i go on about 10:15pm.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"show this thursday"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;m really not in any position to finish strong this quarter. two large papers and a final in the next week, and i\u0026rsquo;m just ready to give up.\nready to give up and spend my life paralyzed by good music, manufacturing whatever emotion i feel like having at the moment. though i would always choose just one: self-pity. there\u0026rsquo;s nothing like that particular emotion to lull me into thinking that all that matters in life, and i\u0026rsquo;ll that i\u0026rsquo;m good for, is listening to good music and feeling self-pity. it\u0026rsquo;s a magnificent circle, isn\u0026rsquo;t it.\nsomeone tell me to shut up and go to bed.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/feeling-factory/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m really not in any position to finish strong this quarter. two large papers and a final in the next week, and i\u0026rsquo;m just ready to give up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eready to give up and spend my life paralyzed by good music, manufacturing whatever emotion i feel like having at the moment. though i would always choose just one: self-pity. there\u0026rsquo;s nothing like that particular emotion to lull me into thinking that all that matters in life, and i\u0026rsquo;ll that i\u0026rsquo;m good for, is listening to good music and feeling self-pity. it\u0026rsquo;s a magnificent circle, isn\u0026rsquo;t it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"feeling factory"},{"content":"the presidential news conference: why do i feel like he never directly answered a single question?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/gw/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe presidential news conference: why do i feel like he never directly answered a single question?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"GW"},{"content":"i am glad that there is no way, in aol instant messenger, for people to tell how many times i\u0026rsquo;ve checked their away messages. if there were, i\u0026rsquo;m sure at least 10 would think i\u0026rsquo;m a stalker.\nreally, it\u0026rsquo;s a little game i play called \u0026ldquo;hit the close button!\u0026rdquo;. here\u0026rsquo;s how it works:\n1. right click on a buddy\u0026rsquo;s screen name\n2. click the button labelled \u0026ldquo;close\u0026rdquo; on the away message that pops up\nthe trick is to try and click on the close button in the very instant it becomes visible (meaning of course, that you told your finger to press down on the mouse even before the close button is visible. this requires knowing exactly where it pops up\u0026ndash;a skill i\u0026rsquo;ve honed to a very fine degree).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/hit-the-close-button/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am glad that there is no way, in aol instant messenger, for people to tell how many times i\u0026rsquo;ve checked their away messages. if there were, i\u0026rsquo;m sure at least 10 would think i\u0026rsquo;m a stalker.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ereally, it\u0026rsquo;s a little game i play called \u0026ldquo;hit the close button!\u0026rdquo;. here\u0026rsquo;s how it works:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. right click on a buddy\u0026rsquo;s screen name\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2. click the button labelled \u0026ldquo;close\u0026rdquo; on the away message that pops up\u003c/p\u003e","title":"hit the close button"},{"content":"today, 1000 Splendour Hyaline CDs arrived at my suite. i didn\u0026rsquo;t realize it would be such an exciting thing for these things to arrive, but as it turns out, i\u0026rsquo;m still grinning happily after ripping through the shrink wrap on the first CD to be opened.\nthe CDs more than met my expectations: chris\u0026rsquo; fabulous design work came out in perfect detail, and there\u0026rsquo;s not a single thing wrong with the printing or the packaging. in fact i\u0026rsquo;m blown away by how clean it is.\nthe sound quality lost nothing in production, and as i sit here listening to the CD with a pair of decent headphones, i\u0026rsquo;m mildly shocked that we were able to put out something that sounds this good (in terms of quality\u0026ndash;well, what the heck: in terms of whatever you want, i think it\u0026rsquo;s good)\nthanks again to all of you who provided help with and inspiration for this project\u0026ndash;you all rock!\nnow, to business: i\u0026rsquo;m sure a lot of you are wondering how to get your hands on one of these babies (and if you\u0026rsquo;re not, you should be), and i\u0026rsquo;d be glad to transfer ownership of a small number in exchange for a small fee (i\u0026rsquo;ve got to pay back my investors). if you live in stanford, the best way to do this is to talk to me. if you live in orlando or gainesville, i\u0026rsquo;ll be shipping a large quantity to each location, to be sold by my sister and my brother, respectively. if you live anywhere else, i\u0026rsquo;ll be setting up an online store, which will be accessible when splendourhyaline.com is launched. you can use this, but be warned that i\u0026rsquo;ll be charging more for the CD and for shipping online.\nand don\u0026rsquo;t forget, for those of you in the area: there will be a CD release party show at the CoHo on thursday, march 13th!\ndisc on spin: between | splendour hyaline\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/between-lp-is-launched/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etoday, 1000 Splendour Hyaline CDs arrived at my suite. i didn\u0026rsquo;t realize it would be such an exciting thing for these things to arrive, but as it turns out, i\u0026rsquo;m still grinning happily after ripping through the shrink wrap on the first CD to be opened.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe CDs more than met my expectations: chris\u0026rsquo; fabulous design work came out in perfect detail, and there\u0026rsquo;s not a single thing wrong with the printing or the packaging. in fact i\u0026rsquo;m blown away by how clean it is.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"between lp is launched"},{"content":"today i went to church twice.\ntoday i actually had breakfast: 2 eggs and 2 pancakes, cooked to order in my eating club.\ntoday i drove my new car around, pretending that i rock at driving stick and really wanting to listen to cake\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;going the distance\u0026rsquo;, or whatever.\ntoday i sat in my shorts (and no shirt) outside our suite, skin staring at the sun, amazed at the gigantic differences in temperature that the wind makes, and wondering why josser\u0026rsquo;s nipples are so much bigger than mine.\ntoday i read far too many pages of philosophy, about moral realism and intuitions as evidence for generative linguistic phenomena.\ntoday i decided it was time to figure out life, love, and why.\ntoday i came no closer to figuring out life, love, or why.\ntoday i became more confused about life, love, and why.\n\\\\\\____________________________________________\nthat\u0026rsquo;s why there is such a thing as tomorrow.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/jossers-nipples/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etoday i went to church twice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etoday i actually had breakfast: 2 eggs and 2 pancakes, cooked to order in my eating club.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etoday i drove my new car around, pretending that i rock at driving stick and really wanting to listen to cake\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;going the distance\u0026rsquo;, or whatever.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etoday i sat in my shorts (and no shirt) outside our suite, skin staring at the sun, amazed at the gigantic differences in temperature that the wind makes, and wondering why josser\u0026rsquo;s nipples are so much bigger than mine.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"josser's nipples"},{"content":"it\u0026rsquo;s hard to describe what my heart has been craving recently. i suppose that\u0026rsquo;s why i ran without stopping for 75 minutes today\u0026ndash;clarity. something about the wind and sun, the hills and the undulating path, the green crowned with blue and white, erases all confusion. and something about the steady pounding of feet on dirt and cement restores reason and perspective. i had hoped that these things would give me the clarity i needed to see what is driving my heart these days.\nunfortunately, the realization didn\u0026rsquo;t come with the sweat. the most i can say, then, is that it [the craving] is a \u0026ldquo;tightness of the heart; a hope, yet veiled\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo;\nbut for all that helps, i might have called it a veiled heart\u0026hellip;you\u0026rsquo;d think something so internal and central to the self would be an open book to the one to whom it is immediate. instead, my heart surprises me daily both in its heights and depths\u0026ndash;both in the clear sympathy it has and in its astounding capriciousness. i am surprised on occasion by its seasoned and discerning understanding of what is wise, and on almost every same occasion by its attempts to wriggle away from wisdom as fast as its little aortas can carry it.\nit\u0026rsquo;s exactly this juxtaposition which, of course, has already been described:\n[\u0026ldquo;wellspring of life\u0026rdquo; \u0026lt;\u0026ndash; | \u0026ndash;\u0026gt; \u0026ldquo;deceitful above all things\u0026rdquo;]\nmaybe, then, the simple answer is that i shouldn\u0026rsquo;t even care what my heart is mysteriously and ineffably craving? now that\u0026rsquo;s not very emo\u0026hellip;\nthen again, it\u0026rsquo;s all about transcending emo\u0026hellip;\nvirtual disc on spin: if i told you what i was listening to, you wouldn\u0026rsquo;t believe me.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/03/confusion-dictates-action-which-brings-peace/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit\u0026rsquo;s hard to describe what my heart has been craving recently. i suppose that\u0026rsquo;s why i ran without stopping for 75 minutes today\u0026ndash;clarity. something about the wind and sun, the hills and the undulating path, the green crowned with blue and white, erases all confusion. and something about the steady pounding of feet on dirt and cement restores reason and perspective. i had hoped that these things would give me the clarity i needed to see what is driving my heart these days.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"confusion dictates action which brings peace"},{"content":"miraculously, i purchased my first car on saturday. it is a beautiful machine, and i love it. click here for pictures of a car of the same make, model, color, etc\u0026hellip;\nmy parents were in town friday and saturday helping me look for it, and my dad\u0026rsquo;s finely-honed negotiation skills, guided by the good grace of god, landed us a truly unthinkable deal on the car. i won\u0026rsquo;t go into it, but rest assured there was indeed evidence of the invisible hand at work. rock.\nimportantly, the car is under my name, and today i purchased my own insurance with progressive. thus, for the first time in my life, i have a car (and a nice loan to go with it, of course) and insurance under my responsibility. i am glad for this next step into adulthood\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;m 20 years old, so it\u0026rsquo;s about time. time to catch up to friends like josser who\u0026rsquo;ve been working through these responsibilities on their own for years.\nalso, the car has a manual transmission, which i have since had to learn, and i am really enjoying that new aspect of driving.\nmore good news came today: the Splendour Hyaline cds have shipped! they\u0026rsquo;ll be at my door in less than a week. i suppose i should start working on splendourhyaline.com.\nin other music news, i\u0026rsquo;m headlining a show at the coho on march 13th. details to follow (but if you want them you should sign up to my e-mail list, go to www.jonathanlipps.com for instructions).\ndisc on spin: how to start a fire | furtherseemsforever\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/my-first-car/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emiraculously, i purchased my first car on saturday. it is a beautiful machine, and i love it. click \u003cstrong\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://www.autotrader.com/findacar/images.jtmpl?car_id=112433362\u0026amp;color=WHITE\u0026amp;search_type=used\u0026amp;make=HONDA\u0026amp;model=CIVIC\u0026amp;transmission=MAN\u0026amp;distance=100\u0026amp;address=94305\u0026amp;only_price=\u0026amp;advanced=y\u0026amp;certified=\u0026amp;max_mileage=\u0026amp;max_price=\u0026amp;min_price=\u0026amp;first_record=\u0026amp;end_year=1999\u0026amp;start_year=1999\u0026amp;drive=\u0026amp;engine=\u0026amp;body_style=COUPE\u0026amp;advcd_on=y\u0026amp;doors=2\u0026amp;fuel=\u0026amp;\u0026amp;ac_afflt=none\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e for pictures of a car of the same make, model, color, etc\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003emy parents were in town friday and saturday helping me look for it, and my dad\u0026rsquo;s finely-honed negotiation skills, guided by the good grace of god, landed us a truly unthinkable deal on the car. i won\u0026rsquo;t go into it, but rest assured there was indeed evidence of the invisible hand at work. rock.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"my first car"},{"content":"in answer to all of your questions: song b. (that\u0026rsquo;s a link, for those not prone to figuring stuff out)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/song-b/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ein answer to all of your questions: \u003ca href=\"song_b.mp3\"\u003esong b\u003c/a\u003e. (that\u0026rsquo;s a link, for those not prone to figuring stuff out)\u003c/p\u003e","title":"song b"},{"content":"i know it\u0026rsquo;s more fun to read about my adventures with girls (of which there are a lot, of course), but i have some more mundane announcements.\n1. starting next quarter, i will officially be the new kitchen manager for beefeater\u0026rsquo;s dining society here at suites. what is that, you ask? i tell: all the people who live in suites eat at one of four eating clubs: beefeater\u0026rsquo;s, bollard, avanti, and middle-earth. which club you eat at is determined by where you live in suites. for instance, this year i live on the third floor of griffin, so i eat at bollard. anyway, these eating clubs have a club manager, a kitchen manager, and a financial manager, who together are responsible for running and managing all aspects of the club. i applied for one of these positions, and was assigned kitchen manager, as i said. what that means is that i will be living in suites next year, will get free board, and will have to work a certain number of hours per week making sure my club (beef, as they call it), runs smoothly. as i was looking at a sucky year going unpreferred in the draw, this is a blessing and a step-up. the job starts in april and goes through the end of my senior year!\n2. parent\u0026rsquo;s weekend is this upcoming weekend, so my mom and dad will be visiting! it will be great\u0026ndash;and they\u0026rsquo;ll be helping me look for a car, so lord willing if we find a good deal i might have a car soon!\n3. i have had really strange eating habits the past two days. yesterday i gorged myself on starbursts to the point of sickness. today i\u0026rsquo;ve eaten probably 10-15 of those little chocolate candy bars, like kit kats and stuff. plus another 20 or so starbursts throughout the day. and i had a huge dinner. enormous, i mean it. now i just ate more candy while typing this blog. it\u0026rsquo;s really scary\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ve never been this ravenous in my life, where i don\u0026rsquo;t get full. i know i will regret eating junk food later this week when i climb worse and have more zits. but oh well.\n4. yesterday i did so many pull-ups it\u0026rsquo;s not funny. anytime i was bored of work (which was quite often), i ran and did like 10-15 pull-ups on the bar in our shower. i must have done somewhere between 1 and 2 hundred over the course of the day. between that and eating only junk food i\u0026rsquo;m feeling kinda weird.\n5. last night, i was directed, by someone who will remain anonymous to protect his/her reputation, to www.emogame.com. i spent a few hours playing this game. honestly i\u0026rsquo;m really not sure if it\u0026rsquo;s had a horrible impact on my life or not. but anyway, the premise of this internet arcade game (somewhat a mix between like the old simpsons arcade game and a role-playing game) is that the get up kids have been kidnapped by steve tyler of aerosmith (i won\u0026rsquo;t tell you why, because this blog is only rated R, not NC-17). and then you, who are in control of various emo-band frontmen, like chris simpson of mineral for example, have to work your way through numerous levels killing yuppies and hippies and sell-outs and all manner of un-emo people. in the process you discover what makes emo so special (i won\u0026rsquo;t ruin that surprise), and are able to boost your score through various emo quizzes throughout the game. now, before all you little emo-kid friends of mine run off and play this game, i want to make a rather large disclaimer: the game is about as offensive as something can possibly be. i myself had to turn it off after seeing so many little cartoon people screwing each other in the background (of the screen, that is\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s actually an integral part of the plot). there\u0026rsquo;s all sorts of cartoon graphic violence and sex of various disturbing positions. for that reason, i\u0026rsquo;d recommend not playing the game, if you are of weak constitution. but, if you can handle it, the plot really is quite funny and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing like playing chris carabba and using his \u0026ldquo;special power\u0026rdquo;, MEGA-OVARIES!! it\u0026rsquo;s simply fantastic. enough said. oh, postscript: if you are not pretty seriously into emo music, i\u0026rsquo;m fairly sure that 95-99% of the value of this game will disappear (flying straight over your head).\nvirtual disc on spin: american football | american football\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/letter-from-the-management/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei know it\u0026rsquo;s more fun to read about my adventures with girls (of which there are a \u003cem\u003elot\u003c/em\u003e, of course), but i have some more mundane announcements.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. starting next quarter, i will officially be the new kitchen manager for beefeater\u0026rsquo;s dining society here at suites. what is that, you ask? i tell: all the people who live in suites eat at one of four eating clubs: beefeater\u0026rsquo;s, bollard, avanti, and middle-earth. which club you eat at is determined by where you live in suites. for instance, this year i live on the third floor of griffin, so i eat at bollard. anyway, these eating clubs have a club manager, a kitchen manager, and a financial manager, who together are responsible for running and managing all aspects of the club. i applied for one of these positions, and was assigned kitchen manager, as i said. what that means is that i will be living in suites next year, will get free board, and will have to work a certain number of hours per week making sure my club (beef, as they call it), runs smoothly. as i was looking at a sucky year going unpreferred in the draw, this is a blessing and a step-up. the job starts in april and goes through the end of my senior year!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"letter from the management"},{"content":"for the first time in my life, i took a girl on a date on valentine\u0026rsquo;s day. the first 12 or 15 years i was either oblivious to the option of doing so, didn\u0026rsquo;t care, or would have been denied the opportunity by parents. in fact, during those years i don\u0026rsquo;t think i ever even gave a girl a serious valentine card. i received my share, of course, and some from girls i liked, but it always seemed dumb. then again, i was young.\nof the two girls i\u0026rsquo;ve dated starting at the age of 16, i was only going out with one over valentine\u0026rsquo;s day. that was last year, when i was dating emily: we went to england with my family (see the post from 2.19.2002). you could say the whole thing was a valentine\u0026rsquo;s trip, since it happened before and after the day, but we didn\u0026rsquo;t technically go out on a date, if i remember aright, since we were traveling.\nso maybe 20 is a bit late to start figuring out what valentine\u0026rsquo;s day is all about. i dunno. actually i think that\u0026rsquo;s a pretty dumb sentence, honestly. forget it.\nanyway i asked out mackenzie, and we went to dinner and a movie (look at the post from 2.8.2003 \u0026ndash; she went with me to junior formal last week!). and then coffee and hanging out and tv and and and\u0026hellip;.it turned into quite a long date, but very fun. unfortunately, we were both sick to different degrees the entire evening: as for me, i could barely talk and had a fairly consistent cough, which made things suboptimal. no worries, though.\nfor the record, at no time were we sitting on the couch alone watching romeo and juliet, or any part thereof.\noff the record, i have to say it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty decent movie once you get past the fact that it\u0026rsquo;s valentine\u0026rsquo;s day and you\u0026rsquo;re watching freakin romeo and juliet.\nconclusion: the night was low-key, low-stress, and i had a wonderful time. i hope all valentine\u0026rsquo;s days from here on out are as nice.\nbut sorry, no more details for your gossip-hungry ears. i know you are all asking \u0026ldquo;do you like her? does she like you? are you guys dating now? tell tell tell!\u0026rdquo;, but it will just have to wait. and mark \u0026ldquo;the rebel\u0026rdquo; rogers, no more rebel comment posts from you about girls.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/v-day-2003/","summary":"\u003cp\u003efor the first time in my life, i took a girl on a date on valentine\u0026rsquo;s day. the first 12 or 15 years i was either oblivious to the option of doing so, didn\u0026rsquo;t care, or would have been denied the opportunity by parents. in fact, during those years i don\u0026rsquo;t think i ever even gave a girl a serious valentine card. i received my share, of course, and some from girls i liked, but it always seemed dumb. then again, i was young.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"v-day 2003"},{"content":"it\u0026rsquo;s final: daniel urban, joseph carucci, and i will be traveling to the united kingdom for spring break.\nwe leave on march 20th, return on the 27th, and have spent $330 each on transportation from san francisco to london and back. quite a good deal. now it\u0026rsquo;s all about finding in-country transportation and lodgings at a bargain.\nplans for what to do while in the uk are not firm (or even existent), but ideas include visiting such places as london, oxford, bath, edinburgh, cambridge, and dublin.\nnow, back to the drudgery and toil of winter quarter. let\u0026rsquo;s all just pray i\u0026rsquo;m alive in time for the great spring break adventure.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/spring-break-plans/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit\u0026rsquo;s final: daniel urban, joseph carucci, and i will be traveling to the united kingdom for spring break.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewe leave on march 20th, return on the 27th, and have spent $330 each on transportation from san francisco to london and back. quite a good deal. now it\u0026rsquo;s all about finding in-country transportation and lodgings at a bargain.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eplans for what to do while in the uk are not firm (or even existent), but ideas include visiting such places as london, oxford, bath, edinburgh, cambridge, and dublin.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break plans"},{"content":"new cds that came in the mail today and made me happy:\namerican football | american football\nsunny day real estate | how it feels to be something on\nthe gloria record | a lull in traffic [ep]\nthe gloria record | the gloria record [ep]\nbelle \u0026amp; sebastian | the boy with the arab strap\nliving sacrifice | reborn\nsixpence none the richer | divine discontent\nand hooray for 4 posts in one day! all you un-friends out there (alex zane) will have a hard time catching up.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/buy-cds-and-save-the-world/","summary":"\u003cp\u003enew cds that came in the mail today and made me happy:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eamerican football | american football\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esunny day real estate | how it feels to be something on\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe gloria record | a lull in traffic [ep]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe gloria record | the gloria record [ep]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ebelle \u0026amp; sebastian | the boy with the arab strap\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eliving sacrifice | reborn\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esixpence none the richer | divine discontent\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand hooray for 4 posts in one day! all you un-friends out there (alex zane) will have a hard time catching up.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"buy cds and save the world"},{"content":"AIM ceased to work on my part of the stanford campus sometime this afternoon. when it went, it left a huge gaping whole in my heart. i was forced to actually do work and go to class instead of obsessively (or is it compulsively?) checking away messages.\nnow, hours later, i\u0026rsquo;m feeling a little bit freer, a little bit lighter, as if a great weight has been taken from my back. although, if i did it again i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t stop cold turkey. serious addictions are not to be toyed with and we\u0026rsquo;re all lucky i didn\u0026rsquo;t go drown myself in lake lagunita.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/goodbye-cruel-world/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eAIM ceased to work on my part of the stanford campus sometime this afternoon. when it went, it left a huge gaping whole in my heart. i was forced to actually do work and go to class instead of obsessively (or is it compulsively?) checking away messages.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enow, hours later, i\u0026rsquo;m feeling a little bit freer, a little bit lighter, as if a great weight has been taken from my back. although, if i did it again i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t stop cold turkey. serious addictions are not to be toyed with and we\u0026rsquo;re all lucky i didn\u0026rsquo;t go drown myself in lake lagunita.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"goodbye cruel world"},{"content":"\u0026hellip;and speaking of rapidly [cf. my last post], here it is! i had the distinct (actually it was kind of fuzzy) pleasure of seeing the sunrise this morning, as i was up at 5am to drive a friend to the airport. now i\u0026rsquo;m debating whether to catch a few hours of sleep before my long day of classes, or instead to just fall asleep in class.\nin other news, splendour hyaline CDs are being made as we speak and should be shipped to me in the next week or two. also, i\u0026rsquo;ve been looking at taking out a loan and trying to get a car. i decided i really need one out here this year. last, dan, joey, and i will be heading to the UK for 6 days over spring break. we hope to visit a number of places in england, and maybe spend a day each in edinburgh and dublin if we can swing it. i\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to that adventure!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/the-futures-on-its-way/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;and speaking of rapidly [cf. my last post], here it is! i had the distinct (actually it was kind of fuzzy) pleasure of seeing the sunrise this morning, as i was up at 5am to drive a friend to the airport. now i\u0026rsquo;m debating whether to catch a few hours of sleep before my long day of classes, or instead to just fall asleep in class.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein other news, splendour hyaline CDs are being made as we speak and should be shipped to me in the next week or two. also, i\u0026rsquo;ve been looking at taking out a loan and trying to get a car. i decided i really need one out here this year. last, dan, joey, and i will be heading to the UK for 6 days over spring break. we hope to visit a number of places in england, and maybe spend a day each in edinburgh and dublin if we can swing it. i\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to that adventure!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the future's on its way"},{"content":"i am paralyzed by music, and i love it\u0026ndash;the state of complete and utter disability to do anything but sit and allow my ears to be two thirsty mouths. each beautiful song is a spiritual feast of the most fundamentally real kind, as i internalize the form of beauty itself and thus meet the one whose playground is platonic heaven.\nthe conclusion being, of course, that it is more important to listen to music than to perform any of the academic gyrations they ask us monkeys [students] to exhibit, like reading abstruse philosophy.\ni wonder, though, about this, for without such philosophy i would not have been able to make an analogy to platonic heaven, nor to really understand transcendence (inexplicable supervenience?). such considerations of paradoxes must wait for the morning, however. and it approaches all too rapidly.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/music/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am paralyzed by music, and i love it\u0026ndash;the state of complete and utter disability to do anything but sit and allow my ears to be two thirsty mouths. each beautiful song is a spiritual feast of the most fundamentally real kind, as i internalize the form of beauty itself and thus meet the one whose playground is platonic heaven.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe conclusion being, of course, that it is more important to listen to music than to perform any of the academic gyrations they ask us monkeys [students] to exhibit, like reading abstruse philosophy.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"music"},{"content":"i just got back from junior formal. if you don\u0026rsquo;t believe me, come to griffin 302 and take a look: i\u0026rsquo;m sitting here in my dress slacks, black square-toe docs, and wifebeater undershirt, dress shirt and tie strewn on the floor to my left (incidentally, according to hanes, i am not wearing a \u0026ldquo;wifebeater\u0026rdquo; but an \u0026ldquo;a-shirt\u0026rdquo;. according to my dad this selfsame article of clothing is a \u0026ldquo;guinea tee\u0026rdquo;. perhaps hanes is too uncomfortable with and my dad too old for the unpleasant connotation of the name. i prefer to think of the name not as being built up from components with a determined semantic value [\u0026ldquo;wife\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;beater\u0026rdquo;], but being an english primitive, the fact that it sounds phonologically similar to said semantic components a complete accident. more interesting to you all is perhaps why i wear this particular style of clothing at times. this is a great topic for discussion, as it involves themes of pride, insecurity, frivolity, and toned muscles. tonight let\u0026rsquo;s just say that i was out of regular undershirts. and this was in fact the truth).\njunior formal was held in the carnelian room atop the 52 stories of the bank of america building in san francisco. needless to say, the views from the event\u0026rsquo;s two admittedly-crowded rooms were nothing short of spectacular. before arriving at the dance, we sat to a late dinner at 8:30pm at the cosmopolitan cafe, an upscale live-jazz type restaurant. the food did not disappoint, and everyone ate to his or her utter satisfaction.\nof course, food, dancing, and skyscrapers are all purely secondary considerations. what makes or breaks an event such as this is, obviously, the date! and, while i can remember plenty of dances in the past years, i feel that i must have particularly lucked out on this one because of my date. i had the privilege of taking the beautiful miss mackenzie wallace, a student at santa clara university. she looked stunning in her red dress (of course), proved to be an interesting conversationalist (for me, this means taking in stride my off-the-wall and irrelevant comments, my propensity to focus the attention on myself, and the random gibberish noises i make occasionally), and didn\u0026rsquo;t even like dancing! three very admirable qualities. she also smelled good, which is something i\u0026rsquo;ve noticed about girls in general but they must do something special for dances. or something.\nbut now is the sucky time when everyone\u0026rsquo;s gone home and i\u0026rsquo;m sitting awake at 3:45am trying to resurrect the experiences of a few hours ago and put them into blog form. honestly i would have liked nothing better than for the night to have continued indefinitely. i don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly what that means, but i think it was because of a combination of (1) enjoying my date\u0026rsquo;s company and (2) dreading the thought of having to get up tomorrow and work all day, and all the next day, and all the next days until next weekend. either (1) or (2) would have sufficed as a reason for the wish on its own, and so their concurrence lent fuel to the frustration that time moves forward without much in the way of stasis.\nstill, i think this is a key area of my personality in which i can grow; namely, that i always want a good experience to last forever, mostly out of a fear of returning to the baseline of the normal. i can\u0026rsquo;t seem to internalize what i think is the correct view: good experiences are good partly just in virtue of the fact that they are not forever\u0026hellip;if they were, wouldn\u0026rsquo;t they lose the very distinctions which make them good? due to the failure of truly grasping this, i have a horrible problem in coming down off of any kind of \u0026lsquo;high\u0026rsquo; in experience, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. i tend, in fact, to get immediately frustrated for a short time after one of these events because i haven\u0026rsquo;t let go, or really believed it to be over. kind of like a kid on one of those little rides outside of k-mart\u0026ndash;the helicopter, or the horse, or the racecar\u0026ndash;the quarter\u0026rsquo;s long spent, and the pistons long still, and yet the tyke keeps gyrating and balancing, pretending the wind into his hair and denying reality the chance to catch up with his fleeing it.\nof course, the last thing i wanted was to turn this blog into a pity party or another tedious recital of things i want to change about myself. who cares? not me! (maybe this is a problem). at any rate the fact that i\u0026rsquo;m writing right now and trying to hold in my lungs the spirit of the fun time i had tonight shows that it was, really, a fun time! so i can stand back, package it up, smile one more time, and give it to god for safekeeping. hopefully that will solve all my problems and clear my mind enough for the sleep which i desperately need, having been awake for about 21 hours. that being said, adios y que el les bendiga.\nvirtual disc on spin: it\u0026rsquo;s hard to find a friend | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/junior-formal/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei just got back from junior formal. if you don\u0026rsquo;t believe me, come to griffin 302 and take a look: i\u0026rsquo;m sitting here in my dress slacks, black square-toe docs, and wifebeater undershirt, dress shirt and tie strewn on the floor to my left (incidentally, according to hanes, i am not wearing a \u0026ldquo;wifebeater\u0026rdquo; but an \u0026ldquo;a-shirt\u0026rdquo;. according to my dad this selfsame article of clothing is a \u0026ldquo;guinea tee\u0026rdquo;. perhaps hanes is too uncomfortable with and my dad too old for the unpleasant connotation of the name. i prefer to think of the name not as being built up from components with a determined semantic value [\u0026ldquo;wife\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;beater\u0026rdquo;], but being an english primitive, the fact that it sounds phonologically similar to said semantic components a complete accident. more interesting to you all is perhaps why i wear this particular style of clothing at times. this is a great topic for discussion, as it involves themes of pride, insecurity, frivolity, and toned muscles. tonight let\u0026rsquo;s just say that i was out of regular undershirts. and this was in fact the truth).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"junior formal"},{"content":"i had more important announcements to make on the 3rd of this month, but something else happened on that day: my blog turned 1 year old. in honor of this event i\u0026rsquo;ve compiled all my archives for that year into one file. to read the entire first year of this blogging venture, simply click on \u0026ldquo;year one\u0026rdquo; in the right hand pane. the months for said year are included underneath. archives for the current year (year 2) will continue above them as usual.\nwhether you\u0026rsquo;ve been around since the beginning or only just found this page, thanks for reading. it\u0026rsquo;s been great [writing], and i hope that it continues for years to come.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/happy-blog-a-versary-to-me/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei had more important announcements to make on the 3rd of this month, but something else happened on that day: my blog turned 1 year old. in honor of this event i\u0026rsquo;ve compiled all my archives for that year into one file. to read the entire first year of this blogging venture, simply click on \u0026ldquo;year one\u0026rdquo; in the right hand pane. the months for said year are included underneath. archives for the current year (year 2) will continue above them as usual.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"happy blog-a-versary to me"},{"content":"while we\u0026rsquo;re in the mood of announcing new and fabulous things: i got my hair cut on saturday. it was just past shoulder-length, and is now a very abercrombie 2 inches.\nthe change, while it makes me look a few years younger (no more illegal alcohol runs), is welcome. life feels more manageable, and it\u0026rsquo;s not such a pain to put my headphones on.\nalso, being more aerodynamic now, i hope to shave a few seconds off my mile time.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/haircut/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewhile we\u0026rsquo;re in the mood of announcing new and fabulous things: i got my hair cut on saturday. it was just past shoulder-length, and is now a very abercrombie 2 inches.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe change, while it makes me look a few years younger (no more illegal alcohol runs), is welcome. life feels more manageable, and it\u0026rsquo;s not such a pain to put my headphones on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ealso, being more aerodynamic now, i hope to shave a few seconds off my mile time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"haircut"},{"content":"Prologue\nBetween is a location defined not on its own, but in relation to two other places. One is behind, the other ahead\u0026ndash;one past, the other future. As such, being between carries an inherent vertigo, a constant reminder that I am not\u0026hellip;really\u0026hellip;anywhere. I have begun the journey, though its resolution is not in sight. Land has long since disappeared off the Western horizon, and not yet emerged in the East. Will I eventually reach my destination, or, instead, fall off the rim of the world, deluded? In truth, we are all between\u0026ndash;between life and death, between the extremes of utter evil and pure altruism, between clarity and self-deception. Such tension is a tightness of the heart: a hope, yet veiled, that beats with failing wings, against the airless cold of space, in flight toward a Radiance that burns downcast eyes.\nBetween, the first 12 steps in the life of Splendour Hyaline (consisting of Jonathan and David Lipps), will be released on compact disc in the last week of February 2003.\nLook for splendourhyaline.com nearer to that time, for free sample mp3s.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/splendour-hyaline/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePrologue\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBetween is a location defined not on its own, but in relation to two other places. One is behind, the other ahead\u0026ndash;one past, the other future. As such, being between carries an inherent vertigo, a constant reminder that I am not\u0026hellip;really\u0026hellip;anywhere. I have begun the journey, though its resolution is not in sight. Land has long since disappeared off the Western horizon, and not yet emerged in the East. Will I eventually reach my destination, or, instead, fall off the rim of the world, deluded? In truth, we are all between\u0026ndash;between life and death, between the extremes of utter evil and pure altruism, between clarity and self-deception. Such tension is a tightness of the heart: a hope, yet veiled, that beats with failing wings, against the airless cold of space, in flight toward a Radiance that burns downcast eyes.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"splendour hyaline"},{"content":"\u0026ldquo;But it is also obvious that, although the schemata of sensibility first realize the categories, yet they likewise also restrict them, i.e., limit them to conditions that lie outside the understanding (namely, in sensibility). Hence the schema is really only the phenomenon, or the sensibile concept of an object, in agreement with the category. (Numerus est quantitas phaenomenon, sensatio realitas phaenomenon, constans et perdurabile rerum substantia phaenomenon - aeternitas, necessitas phaenomena etc.). Now if we leave aside a restricting condition, it may seem as if we amplify the previously limited concept; thus the categories in their pure significance, without any conditions of sensibility, should hold for things in general, as they are, instead of their schemata merely representing them how they apear, and they would therefore have a significance independent of all schemata and extending far beyond them.\u0026rdquo;\nWas this the fault of the author or the translators?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/02/i-love-kant/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But it is also obvious that, although the schemata of sensibility first realize the categories, yet they likewise also restrict them, i.e., limit them to conditions that lie outside the understanding (namely, in sensibility). Hence the schema is really only the phenomenon, or the sensibile concept of an object, in agreement with the category. (Numerus est quantitas phaenomenon, sensatio realitas phaenomenon, constans et perdurabile rerum substantia phaenomenon - aeternitas, necessitas phaenomena etc.). Now if we leave aside a restricting condition, it may seem as if we amplify the previously limited concept; thus the categories in their pure significance, without any conditions of sensibility, should hold for things in general, as they are, instead of their schemata merely representing them how they apear, and they would therefore have a significance independent of all schemata and extending far beyond them.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i love kant"},{"content":"i realized today that there are two things which really move me: music and philosophy. music is the poetry and the philosophy is the syntax, the logic, which makes the beauty possible. music is the paint, and philosophy the canvas. of my life, maybe.\nalex told me today that i am a gatsby; that what is really important to me is \u0026ldquo;girls\u0026rdquo;. that i am only really excited when i am involved in them, and dull and cynical otherwise. whatever that means: alex zane is a deep man i can\u0026rsquo;t claim to understand.\nare these two characterizations of my life contradictory? it\u0026rsquo;s a good question, and left as an exercise to the reader. some considerations to help you [the reader] in answering: are we talking about life goals or persona descriptions? do girls really not equal music and philosophy (definition of all terms required here)? could alex zane just be wrong?\nin any case, thanks to all of you who have so far responded to the last post, and keep it coming.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/im-a-gatsby/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei realized today that there are two things which really move me: music and philosophy. music is the poetry and the philosophy is the syntax, the logic, which makes the beauty possible. music is the paint, and philosophy the canvas. of my life, maybe.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ealex told me today that i am a gatsby; that what is really important to me is \u0026ldquo;girls\u0026rdquo;. that i am only really excited when i am involved in them, and dull and cynical otherwise. whatever that means: alex zane is a deep man i can\u0026rsquo;t claim to understand.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i'm a gatsby"},{"content":"*slightly tanked and/or not tanked (?), whatever that means*\nthe time has come for the second semi-to-multiply-annual tradition called \u0026ldquo;pick the cover song jonathan may or may not play at his next show\u0026rdquo;! here\u0026rsquo;s how it works: first, you know that i have a show coming up. i don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly when, but sometime in february. second, i give you a list of cover songs that i might play. generally, i start a show off with a cover to get in the groove and get people paying attention. then, you leave a comment with whichever song you think should win out. finally, i calculate which song received a majority of votes, and decide whether or not to play that song. if history is any guide, i\u0026rsquo;ll probably play something not on the list.\nthat being said, here it is [the list]:\n1. motion picture soundtrack (radiohead) [this is the live version, not the studio one with harps \u0026rsquo;n stuff]\n2. wedding dress (derek webb)\n3. only hope (switchfoot)\n4. of up and coming monarchs (pedro the lion)\n5. the scientist (coldplay)\n6. living in your letters (dashboard confessional)\n7. screaming infidelities (dashboard confessional)\nso, now is the time for you, blog reader (whether you be outward friend, faithful or faithless reader, known or unknown to me, stalker or suitress, lurker or regular commenter, first-time or hundredth-time visitor), to give me your input. click the comment link at the bottom of this post (which changes depending on how many people have commented; confusing, i know) and vote! you don\u0026rsquo;t even have to leave your name (but i\u0026rsquo;ll find out who you are anyway, muhahaha. just kidding, i don\u0026rsquo;t know how).\nvirtual disc on spin: no good for no one now | owen\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/cover-song/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e*slightly tanked and/or not tanked (?), whatever that means*\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe time has come for the second semi-to-multiply-annual tradition called \u0026ldquo;pick the cover song jonathan may or may not play at his next show\u0026rdquo;! here\u0026rsquo;s how it works: first, you know that i have a show coming up. i don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly when, but sometime in february. second, i give you a list of cover songs that i might play. generally, i start a show off with a cover to get in the groove and get people paying attention. then, you leave a comment with whichever song you think should win out. finally, i calculate which song received a majority of votes, and decide whether or not to play that song. if history is any guide, i\u0026rsquo;ll probably play something not on the list.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"cover song"},{"content":"this year, i had a team. this year, they won. in fact, they utterly disannihilated their opponents (disannihilated is a word i just made up, which, contrary to what it may seem, means \u0026ldquo;really and completely annihilated\u0026rdquo;).\nthis year, the almost-naked woman became the icon of america, or so the commercials would suggest to a visitor from another planet. in fact, amongst the numerous boob shots and ass close-ups, such a visitor would be hard pressed to tell the difference between national television and softcore porn. maybe that\u0026rsquo;s just the idea\u0026hellip;the real question is this: when we hit rock-bottom (in the next decade, i\u0026rsquo;d guess), do we (1) bounce back up, (2) lay there bleeding on the concrete, or (3) pick up shovels and dig till consumed by the fires of a Dantean inferno?\nin any case, long live the superbowl and the recent scientific advances which make beer an acceptable post-workout thirst quencher.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/mgd/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethis year, i had a team. this year, they won. in fact, they utterly disannihilated their opponents (disannihilated is a word i just made up, which, contrary to what it may seem, means \u0026ldquo;really and completely annihilated\u0026rdquo;).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethis year, the almost-naked woman became the icon of america, or so the commercials would suggest to a visitor from another planet. in fact, amongst the numerous boob shots and ass close-ups, such a visitor would be hard pressed to tell the difference between national television and softcore porn. maybe that\u0026rsquo;s just the idea\u0026hellip;the real question is this: when we hit rock-bottom (in the next decade, i\u0026rsquo;d guess), do we (1) bounce back up, (2) lay there bleeding on the concrete, or (3) pick up shovels and dig till consumed by the fires of a Dantean inferno?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"MGD"},{"content":"thesis: nothing is so frequently struck down as hope\nantithesis: nothing is so unflinchingly, dogmatically rebellious and stubborn as hope\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/is-there-a-middle-ground/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethesis: nothing is so frequently struck down as hope\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eantithesis: nothing is so unflinchingly, dogmatically rebellious and stubborn as hope\u003c/p\u003e","title":"is there a middle ground?"},{"content":"i went snowboarding last weekend. i freaking rocked that mess.\ntonight is a juliana theory concert at stanford. i probably wouldn\u0026rsquo;t pay money to see them otherwise [addendum: actually, i probably would], but the fact that a semi-not-mainstream act is playing here is so mindblowing i had to go, if only to see who else on campus is really indie underneath it all.\ni\u0026rsquo;m pretty much not into writing about anything right now. although i\u0026rsquo;ve noticed a strange trend in my eating habits\u0026hellip;i\u0026rsquo;ve been craving those little snack packets of cookies or ritz s\u0026rsquo;mores or nutter butters. i have no idea why, i never used to like them before. what\u0026rsquo;s next, tomatoes? never!!\nCD update: art is pretty much done, mastering is done, everything is done. now i just have to send it off for production. rock.\nalso, i love xml. it is so tasty.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/snowboards-through-life/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei went snowboarding last weekend. i freaking rocked that mess.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etonight is a juliana theory concert at stanford. i probably wouldn\u0026rsquo;t pay money to see them otherwise [addendum: actually, i probably would], but the fact that a semi-not-mainstream act is playing here is so mindblowing i had to go, if only to see who else on campus is really indie underneath it all.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m pretty much not into writing about anything right now. although i\u0026rsquo;ve noticed a strange trend in my eating habits\u0026hellip;i\u0026rsquo;ve been craving those little snack packets of cookies or ritz s\u0026rsquo;mores or nutter butters. i have no idea why, i never used to like them before. what\u0026rsquo;s next, tomatoes? never!!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"\"snowboards through life\""},{"content":"coming back from a break, from rest and relaxation, into that mode wherein i am either extremely busy or completely zoned out and staring at the computer screen doing nothing, sucks.\nlet\u0026rsquo;s forget all the fancy crap and go right into the news:\ni\u0026rsquo;m a TA this quarter for phil 78, medical ethics. wahoo. i lead two 1-hour sections a week and whatever else\u0026hellip;.i guess it will be fun and challenging!\nwe\u0026rsquo;ve been working frantically on the CD. we have a band name now (yet to be released, of course), and are working on an album title. the CD is mastered, and we\u0026rsquo;re just waiting on the album art before we send it off for production.\ni\u0026rsquo;m probably going to the UK sometime this quarter if i can swing it with classes, for fun and adventure\nnew web design projects are taking up a lot of my time\nand that\u0026rsquo;s it for now. stay posted for CD announcements.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/back-to-winter-quarter-2003/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ecoming back from a break, from rest and relaxation, into that mode wherein i am either extremely busy or completely zoned out and staring at the computer screen doing nothing, sucks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003elet\u0026rsquo;s forget all the fancy crap and go right into the news:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m a TA this quarter for phil 78, medical ethics. wahoo. i lead two 1-hour sections a week and whatever else\u0026hellip;.i guess it will be fun and challenging!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewe\u0026rsquo;ve been working frantically on the CD. we have a band name now (yet to be released, of course), and are working on an album title. the CD is mastered, and we\u0026rsquo;re just waiting on the album art before we send it off for production.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m probably going to the UK sometime this quarter if i can swing it with classes, for fun and adventure\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enew web design projects are taking up a lot of my time\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e","title":"back to winter quarter 2003"},{"content":"days 7-?\nwell, new year\u0026rsquo;s came and went in my blog without much in the way of commendation. much in the way of anything, really.\nthe last few days have seen a flurry of activity with the soon-to-be-released CD. we recorded i don\u0026rsquo;t know how many songs, spending roughly 8 hours a day on it. when you factor in the reality of my situation at home, namely that i\u0026rsquo;ve been sleeping on average 11-12 hours a day, you realize how little else i have been doing.\ni did go out friday night for bowling and pizza (BOR-ing), and saturday night for dinner and a movie with my friend amy, but other than that human interaction with anyone besides david has been virtually non-existent.\nanyway, so we recorded a bunch of songs. 12 to be exact. the last was recorded saturday night at 1am, merely half a day before we were scheduled to pack up the studio and drive david and his drums back up to gainesville. i stayed awake that night until 7:30am (a fuzzy, drizzly sort of dawn greeted me sunday morning) attempting to successfully mix and master the songs.\nyou see, it is one thing to mix a song, and another to mix a song on an album\u0026ndash;the reason being, of course, that all the songs must be related correctly in terms of volume and flow. you can\u0026rsquo;t have a quiet song be, overall, as loud as the grand finale of a rocking, hardcore song. but this process of mastering the songs\u0026ndash;making sure the levels and EQ for every piece are the same\u0026ndash;is a long and tiresome affair of listening to part after part after part and making tweak-like adjustments.\nto make matters worse, i\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing that could be remotely considered \u0026lsquo;mastering equipment\u0026rsquo;, whether hardware or software. in fact, the program i used to master the songs was called \u0026ldquo;leon\u0026rsquo;s free software audio mastering program\u0026rdquo;. obviously not the development monstrosity i\u0026rsquo;d have hoped would produce the software i use. but whatever.\nsooner or later, as i grew more and more tired, my accuracy in listening grew abysmal and i went to bed. of course, i had to wake up (what seemed) soon after that to start taking down the studio.\ni hadn\u0026rsquo;t thought about it before, but as we rolled up the cords and placed the mics back in their cases, i felt a pang of sadness. despite all the grueling work and frustration, recording was fun. i could definitely make my living doing it.\nall that\u0026rsquo;s left now is a few final mastering touches, and the cd will be done. i spent last night in gainesville with two people who, as you know, have been instrumental in making the album\u0026ndash;chris nyffeler and jason killingsworth. we discussed band names, album names, album art, and track sequencing, and i feel more confident that this project is actually going to be finished, and successfully.\nevery time i listen to it i will think \u0026ldquo;i wish i could have done that better\u0026rdquo;, or \u0026ldquo;i wish i wasn\u0026rsquo;t a quarter cent flat there\u0026rdquo;. but whatever, i think it\u0026rsquo;s the best set of music i\u0026rsquo;ve ever put out, and at the best quality. the production will also be the best\u0026ndash;real replicated (not duplicated) CDs, jewel cases, shrink wrap, and the rest. that\u0026rsquo;s what makes this project a success in my opinion\u0026ndash;not that it is perfect (and when could it ever be?)\u0026ndash;but that it is better in every respect to anything i\u0026rsquo;ve done before. and what more can i ask? especially given that we were working on an utterly laughable timescale. no one records a full-length album in 2 weeks. 2 months is closer to the correct scale, though in reality it\u0026rsquo;s probably even double that.\nconclusion: we had fun, we recorded good songs, we recorded them well if not perfectly, and we have a healthy ambition for pursuing the project through to its completion. i wasn\u0026rsquo;t always sure of this but now i am: i won\u0026rsquo;t mind a thousand copies of this album floating around the world. and though i\u0026rsquo;m not certain we\u0026rsquo;ll even come close to selling that many, i definitely hope.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2003/01/making-a-record-part-vi/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003edays 7-?\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewell, new year\u0026rsquo;s came and went in my blog without much in the way of commendation. much in the way of anything, really.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe last few days have seen a flurry of activity with the soon-to-be-released CD. we recorded i don\u0026rsquo;t know how many songs, spending roughly 8 hours a day on it. when you factor in the reality of my situation at home, namely that i\u0026rsquo;ve been sleeping on average 11-12 hours a day, you realize how little else i have been doing.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record part vi"},{"content":"day 6: 12.29.2002\ntoday was a day of revision. revision is something i hate. i never revise papers. occasionally i\u0026rsquo;ll revise a blog entry if what is up pisses me off enough to change it. but yeah, back to papers for a moment - on all the papers i wrote this last quarter (4 to be exact), the process was this: (1) briefly outline [note: the outline for each paper was the same. it consisted of I. introduction II. arguments and II. conclusion]. (2) write the paper straight through, stopping only for snacks or to crack my nose (an odd-sounding bad habit which i\u0026rsquo;ve acquired mostly from writing papers). and that\u0026rsquo;s it. no going back, no changing anything.\nbut i\u0026rsquo;m getting a little far afield here\u0026ndash;the point was just that revision is not something i relish, as it is, i think, for certain friends of mine, like this guy.\ntoday we re-recorded tracks on \u0026lsquo;hear this\u0026rsquo; and \u0026rsquo;escapism is fantasy\u0026rsquo;. we even added some backup vocals (bgv) on \u0026rsquo;escapism\u0026rsquo;, sung by the beautiful and talented rachel lipps. after my previously-recorded vocal inconsistencies were smoothed over with today\u0026rsquo;s replacements, and the songs roughly re-mixed, i\u0026rsquo;m in a much happier state regarding the tunes. at least, i would say that now, more than any time before, they are done, if done they will ever truly be.\nto celebrate a successful session of what i now term \u0026lsquo;catch-up recording\u0026rsquo;, myself, dave, mixerboy, the aforementioned guy, and one other random person, had a \u0026lsquo;session\u0026rsquo; in the hot tub. you see, i am trying to see how many times in one week i can sit in the hot tub. so far i\u0026rsquo;m at 4 times, which is a personal best, if not a world record.\ni think all the heat and steam is actually making me lose quite a few pounds, so don\u0026rsquo;t be surprised if i waste away into nothing in the next few days.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/making-a-record-part-v/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eday 6: 12.29.2002\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etoday was a day of revision. revision is something i hate. i never revise papers. occasionally i\u0026rsquo;ll revise a blog entry if what is up pisses me off enough to change it. but yeah, back to papers for a moment - on all the papers i wrote this last quarter (4 to be exact), the process was this: (1) briefly outline [note: the outline for each paper was the same. it consisted of I. introduction II. arguments and II. conclusion]. (2) write the paper straight through, stopping only for snacks or to crack my nose (an odd-sounding bad habit which i\u0026rsquo;ve acquired mostly from writing papers). and that\u0026rsquo;s it. no going back, no changing anything.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record part v"},{"content":"days 4 and 5: thurs and fri\nin the last two days, we\u0026rsquo;ve been recording quite a bit, and have completed (or so we think), 4 songs: \u0026rsquo;escapism is fantasy\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;small are the words\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;regarding present fears\u0026rsquo; (formerly called \u0026lsquo;hope\u0026rsquo;), and \u0026lsquo;rainfall\u0026rsquo;. these have not been easy, but i think they\u0026rsquo;ve turned out very well. anyway, that brings the total up to 7 songs done, leaving 6 to be completed (or, 7, if we record a secret track of some kind).\nwe have, i think, got the process down to a kind of science now. the time it takes to transition between recording different instruments has become steadily less, and the process of mixing a song steadily more natural. with the help of mixerboy, equipment and levels are set in a flash.\nluckily, (or perhaps unluckily for you), there has been no real drama to speak of. things are going very well, and tomorrow we are planning on recording \u0026lsquo;a veiled hope\u0026rsquo;.\nin other news, i\u0026rsquo;ve been spending most of my time trying to get a new wireless network hub we bought to work in the house. it seems they didn\u0026rsquo;t intend for you to use it if you wanted to retain an already-existing dsl router and wired network. but 3 hours on the phone with technical support today seems to have done the trick, and i\u0026rsquo;m writing and posting (or could be) from a hammock out on the patio.\nbut now it is time for my mom\u0026rsquo;s birthday dinner, and focaccia bread with olive oil and vinegar calls my name!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/making-a-record-part-iv/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003edays 4 and 5: thurs and fri\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein the last two days, we\u0026rsquo;ve been recording quite a bit, and have completed (or so we think), 4 songs: \u0026rsquo;escapism is fantasy\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;small are the words\u0026rsquo;, \u0026lsquo;regarding present fears\u0026rsquo; (formerly called \u0026lsquo;hope\u0026rsquo;), and \u0026lsquo;rainfall\u0026rsquo;. these have not been easy, but i think they\u0026rsquo;ve turned out very well. anyway, that brings the total up to 7 songs done, leaving 6 to be completed (or, 7, if we record a secret track of some kind).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record part iv"},{"content":"i transport myself two millenia back in time and thousands of miles in an arbitrary space direction.\ni enter a dwelling of sorts, and it blurs between wood and stone, thatched and open-air. the scene flickers like three-dimensional images on glass, and sometimes the dwelling is in the middle of a smallish town, sometimes it feels more on the outskirts.\nlike continually-molded gel humanoid figures gather at the edge of my vision. i say the edge, because only one thing occupies my attention. like a flattened vortex seen head-on my sight is focused inexorably on something that stands out from the rest in virtue of being real. more real, even, than my thoughts as i look\u0026ndash;they, too, are only shifting flits of particles in comparison.\nas i gaze in wonder and self-abandonment at the beauty crystallized before me, looking the more far away for its size, i unbiddenly echo the amazement of boromir as the weight of the ring grew full upon his mind. or, perhaps his utterance is really the inverse shadow of mine\u0026ndash;his a reaction to an unspeakable horror and mine to unbounded joy.\nstrange that the fate of the world should rest on so small a thing.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/the-one-king/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei transport myself two millenia back in time and thousands of miles in an arbitrary space direction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei enter a dwelling of sorts, and it blurs between wood and stone, thatched and open-air. the scene flickers like three-dimensional images on glass, and sometimes the dwelling is in the middle of a smallish town, sometimes it feels more on the outskirts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003elike continually-molded gel humanoid figures gather at the edge of my vision. i say the edge, because only one thing occupies my attention. like a flattened vortex seen head-on my sight is focused inexorably on something that stands out from the rest in virtue of being \u003cem\u003ereal\u003c/em\u003e. more real, even, than my thoughts as i look\u0026ndash;they, too, are only shifting flits of particles in comparison.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the one king"},{"content":"day 3: monday 12.23.2002\ndave and i woke up around noon today and got to practicing and recording a few hours later. today we attempted a song many of you probably know, \u0026lsquo;a pixelated life\u0026rsquo;. i\u0026rsquo;ve had an old recording of that up on the internet for about a year now, but i wanted it on the new CD so we had to re-record it for quality\u0026rsquo;s sake. we spent about an hour or two practicing the song, and then got to recording. i laid down the guitar track in two takes, so we switched the mics to vocals, and i was able to get a good take on the second try for that as well.\nthe drums, however, proved to be something of a difficulty. apparently the song is such that dave has a hard time thinking of a really cool drum part to go with certain sections of it. so we did take after take that david wasn\u0026rsquo;t happy with, either because he messed up, or the drum part just didn\u0026rsquo;t sound cool enough. eventually we all (chris was over again helping out) got a little burned out and frustrated and we weren\u0026rsquo;t making progress. so, we decided to call it a day and made some digiorno\u0026rsquo;s pizza for dinner (it was 6:30 by this time).\nthere was no more recording today, as there was a christmas party we went to at 8 at our friend kelly\u0026rsquo;s house, and then we came home from that late and watched the royal tenenbaums. i think we\u0026rsquo;ve also decided not to record on christmas eve or christmas, because that\u0026rsquo;s more a time for family, egg nog, wrapping presents, playing sports, and, most importantly, reflecting on the significance of the entering-into-the-world of the christ child.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/making-a-record-part-iii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eday 3: monday 12.23.2002\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edave and i woke up around noon today and got to practicing and recording a few hours later. today we attempted a song many of you probably know, \u0026lsquo;a pixelated life\u0026rsquo;. i\u0026rsquo;ve had an old recording of that up on the internet for about a year now, but i wanted it on the new CD so we had to re-record it for quality\u0026rsquo;s sake. we spent about an hour or two practicing the song, and then got to recording. i laid down the guitar track in two takes, so we switched the mics to vocals, and i was able to get a good take on the second try for that as well.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record part iii"},{"content":"day 2: sunday 12.22.2002\nyou might wonder what happened to saturday\u0026ndash;well, my family went down to west palm beach for part of the weekend to spend some time with my grandma and aunt and uncle, who live down there. we got back at 2pm today, and dave and i redid the drums on \u0026lsquo;so talk about it\u0026rsquo;, since we decided we weren\u0026rsquo;t happy with them. hopefully third time\u0026rsquo;s the charm! but i think we have a finished or near-finished product, anyway. then duty called and we had to go to a christmas party until 7. once all the weekend\u0026rsquo;s obligations were over with, we began to practice and record \u0026lsquo;hear this\u0026rsquo;, a song i wrote this summer, but haven\u0026rsquo;t played at any shows this year, since it\u0026rsquo;s rather long, and hard to nail the vocals on.\ncompared to \u0026lsquo;so talk about it\u0026rsquo;, the process went very smoothly. we were done mixing and mastering the song by 1am. of course, we did have the artistic and technical help of one chris nyffeler, who was kind enough to come hang out during the entire session.\nwe also came up with a tentative title for the forthcoming album, but i of course can\u0026rsquo;t divulge that information until everything is finalized.\nwell, i guess not a whole lot particularly interesting happened during the session\u0026ndash;and i wont bother going into as much detail as day 1, since all the mic placements and what have you were the same. tomorrow we\u0026rsquo;re slated to try for 2 songs, though, so maybe there will be some exciting news soon!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/making-a-record-part-ii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eday 2: sunday 12.22.2002\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eyou might wonder what happened to saturday\u0026ndash;well, my family went down to west palm beach for part of the weekend to spend some time with my grandma and aunt and uncle, who live down there. we got back at 2pm today, and dave and i redid the drums on \u0026lsquo;so talk about it\u0026rsquo;, since we decided we weren\u0026rsquo;t happy with them. hopefully third time\u0026rsquo;s the charm! but i think we have a finished or near-finished product, anyway. then duty called and we had to go to a christmas party until 7. once all the weekend\u0026rsquo;s obligations were over with, we began to practice and record \u0026lsquo;hear this\u0026rsquo;, a song i wrote this summer, but haven\u0026rsquo;t played at any shows this year, since it\u0026rsquo;s rather long, and hard to nail the vocals on.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record part ii"},{"content":"today, my brother david and i started recording songs for our new CD. i picked him up from gainesville on wednesday, and after a brief stop for some rock climbing action at a local gym, we came home and set up the studio. in our house there is one second-story room, which we call the bonus room. we cleaned this room out of every unnecessary object, and quickly set up drums, guitars, an amp, a PA, mic stands, a gigantic mixer (that can probably fly, it looks so sleek), our computer, etc\u0026hellip; by the end of wednesday night we had what for all purposes looked to be a bona fide home recording studio.\nyesterday, thursday, was Day 0. Day 0 was spent practicing all of the songs (most of which dave and i had not played together and so he needed to write the drum parts). it was a long day. also on Day 0 i decided that it would be cool to keep a recording session journal of sorts\u0026ndash;comment on each day\u0026rsquo;s progress, what we are working on, that sort of thing. possibly, some of you will find this interesting. so, here we go!\nday 1: friday 12.20.2002\ni woke up early today (11am) since i had to take my dad to work. i did some christmas shopping while i was out and came back at noon. i woke david up and we started working. for about 2 hours we practiced \u0026lsquo;so talk about it\u0026rsquo;, a song i\u0026rsquo;ve played at shows recently, and probably my most poppy song. the song is easy enough to play, but has some parts where i play around with the time signature a bit, making it tough for a drummer to follow. dave, of course, had no problems at all, and came up with super-groovy lines for the different parts of the song. probably around 2 or 3pm, we decided we were ready to start recording. we got a click-track going, and i layed down the guitar lines for the song in 2 takes, after setting up two oktava mk-319 condenser mics in an x-pattern in front of the sound hole of my guitar. satisfied, and glad that all the practicing we\u0026rsquo;d done had meant i knew the song perfectly, we moved on to vocals. for these we used just one of the mk-319s. i did a couple takes, and thought i was happy with the most recent, but decided that all my upper range notes were on the flat side. i recorded again and fixed this as well as it was going to be fixed. shifting the mics to drums (we used the 2 mk-319s for overheads, an audio technica pro 25 for kick, and a shure sm-57 for snare) took a little while, since we had to find decent equalization and compression settings. eventually dave started tracking, and somewhere between 5 and 10 takes later we had drums.\nat this point dave suggested that we add some electric guitar to the song, to give it a little more powerful edge at the crucial parts of the song. i was skeptical, not wanting to clutter the song, but decided that we should try anyway. we miked the guitar amp with the sm-57 and i searched for the warm, fuzzy sort of distortion that i liked and thought would help out the song. we did some sound checking, and then i laid down a few lines with the electric. i was happy with the first take, so everything was super.\ndeciding that all the parts were right on, i started the mixing process. by this time it must have been 6pm. i mixed for about half an hour, doing volume and pan evolutions, bringing out this and quieting that\u0026hellip;mixing is a subtle art which i would very much like to be good at, but for which i have neither proper training nor proper tools. still, i did my best, and around 7pm, dave and i had a Song. a Finished Song [close enough anyway]. i was excited to listen to it and hear all the parts work together to create just the kind of feel i wanted the song to have \u0026ndash; catchy, yet technical, fun, yet sarcastic and a little edgy. i burned the song to a CD and played it in our home stereo\u0026ndash;it sounded great!\nthen duty called and dave and i went out shopping for christmas presents. in the meantime, we listened to the song some in the car, and dave decided he needed to redo the drums. so when we got home, we miked up the drums again, tried for a little different sound, and recorded dave. he had decided that he wanted to play a slightly less-complicated, more-groovy sort of beat, that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t take away from the rest of the parts as much as he decided it had. we practiced the new version some, and he made 5 or 6 takes until he was happy. that was all well and good, but then i decided i needed to re-record the electric guitar. something about it just sounded like i was playing out of a cardboard box and not the nice, big, amp i was borrowing. i switched the sm-57 to the mk-319 and tried for a different sound. eventually i fiddled with the EQ settings enough to get something that i thought was halfway decent. with no hope of getting it any better with the equipment we had, i layed down the electric guitar track in one take.\nthis is probably 10 or 11pm now, and i finally start mixing the re-recorded tracks into the rest of the song. still, it didn\u0026rsquo;t take me too long, and soon i was mastering the song and trying to up the levels so it would be as loud as a song from any commercially-produced CD. at midnight, all our toil was done, and i burned the new version onto a CD, and also made an mp3. i\u0026rsquo;ve listened to it quite a few times now, and despite a minor mixing change or two, i think it\u0026rsquo;s as good as it could possibly sound with our gear and our understanding of recording techniques. so, i am a tired, yet happy, man, and it feels great to be able to listen for the first time to a song of mine with drums played by an excellent musician, and with some electric guitar punch to augment my usual acoustic sound.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve decided, unfortunately, not to post any mp3s of new songs to the blog until the whole CD is done and finished. too many changes could be made any day to the songs that there\u0026rsquo;s really no point in putting anything but the finished product up here.\nstill, if you\u0026rsquo;re really interested, stop by the house and hang out while dave and i record. or, talk to me on IM and i\u0026rsquo;d be happy to let you in on a listen to whatever\u0026rsquo;s currently done.\nand with that, i\u0026rsquo;m off to bed.\nvirtual song on spin: so talk about it | jonathan lipps\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/making-a-record-part-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etoday, my brother david and i started recording songs for our new CD. i picked him up from gainesville on wednesday, and after a brief stop for some rock climbing action at a local gym, we came home and set up the studio. in our house there is one second-story room, which we call the bonus room. we cleaned this room out of every unnecessary object, and quickly set up drums, guitars, an amp, a PA, mic stands, a gigantic mixer (that can probably fly, it looks so sleek), our computer, etc\u0026hellip; by the end of wednesday night we had what for all purposes looked to be a bona fide home recording studio.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record part i"},{"content":"\u0026hellip;and as it turns out, real blankets have been the order of the most recent days. due to the cold (sub-50-degree\u0026hellip;just a hair from freezing) temperatures and the fact that our heater likes to trip its circuit breaker without reason or warning at the onset of darkness, i\u0026rsquo;ve been spending most of my hours under the comfortable enfolding grace of my bed.\nnow let\u0026rsquo;s make my writer\u0026rsquo;s craft(y/ \u0026amp;) intent transparent and force that into an analogy for what i really want to say: i wish with all my might that i was under a different kind of blanket right now\u0026ndash;the kind that means the end is at hand, or in sight. a blanket that helpers throw over the shoulders of a disaster survivor to let him know he is safe and on the way home, for example. here\u0026rsquo;s another: the one that is worn like a cape around the skinny frame of the victor of a 26-mile battle. or, lastly: the linen wrapping (yes, christ\u0026rsquo;s shroud no less) that is the tape binding two souls for the first time as they begin their life\u0026rsquo;s journey thenceforth as one.\nright now, i am in the middle of the air crash (please pull me out); in the first mile of the race (and fading fast); and wondering with all the rest of the world if and when i will ever be full enough of love to give it to someone else.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/pull-me-out-of-the-air-crash/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;and as it turns out, \u003cem\u003ereal\u003c/em\u003e blankets have been the order of the most recent days. due to the cold (sub-50-degree\u0026hellip;just a hair from freezing) temperatures and the fact that our heater likes to trip its circuit breaker without reason or warning at the onset of darkness, i\u0026rsquo;ve been spending most of my hours under the comfortable enfolding grace of my bed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enow let\u0026rsquo;s make my writer\u0026rsquo;s craft(y/ \u0026amp;) intent transparent and force that into an analogy for what i really want to say: i wish with all my might that i was under a different kind of blanket right now\u0026ndash;the kind that means the end is at hand, or in sight. a blanket that helpers throw over the shoulders of a disaster survivor to let him know he is safe and on the way home, for example. here\u0026rsquo;s another: the one that is worn like a cape around the skinny frame of the victor of a 26-mile battle. or, lastly: the linen wrapping (yes, christ\u0026rsquo;s shroud no less) that is the tape binding two souls for the first time as they begin their life\u0026rsquo;s journey thenceforth as one.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"pull me out of the air crash"},{"content":"\u0026hellip;and after two days of intense relaxation, i\u0026rsquo;m off. tomorrow i brave the \u0026lsquo;winter storm\u0026rsquo; conditions and pray that my planes all go where and when they are supposed to. lord willing, i will be, fair weather or foul, beneath the blanket of floridian humidity in 18 hours.\nto all those not yet done with school, good luck.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/south-for-the-winter/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;and after two days of intense relaxation, i\u0026rsquo;m off. tomorrow i brave the \u0026lsquo;winter storm\u0026rsquo; conditions and pray that my planes all go where and when they are supposed to. lord willing, i will be, fair weather or foul, beneath the blanket of floridian humidity in 18 hours.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eto all those not yet done with school, good luck.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"south for the winter"},{"content":"one more thing left, and i am done. two finals under my belt, and one horrendous logic take-home exam with them, but still remains the hardest of all\u0026ndash;my ontology paper. die, paper, die.\nstill, in a matter of hours, whether done successfully or done having failed, done will i be. and then, it\u0026rsquo;s party time.\nthe thing that\u0026rsquo;s been keeping me going this week is the thought of recording a CD this christmas\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s right, i\u0026rsquo;m recording a CD with super-awesomex drummer david lipps. i\u0026rsquo;ve got about 12 or 13 songs written since i put out the Effortless ep, and it\u0026rsquo;s time those got recorded. no more shoddy dorm-room work, though\u0026ndash;dav and i went all out and got a ton of top-notch recording gear. if all goes well and god is with us, we will be spending 8 hours a day playing and recording (and of course working out to remain the buff studs that we are), and emerge sometime in january with a set of professionally-done songs. that is exciting.\nif you want to be notified when all that is done and songs are available for download or to buy on CD, head over to jonathanlipps.com/list.html and sign up on the mailing list.\nin other news, i need to get back to work on my paper. out.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/making-a-record/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eone more thing left, and i am done. two finals under my belt, and one horrendous logic take-home exam with them, but still remains the hardest of all\u0026ndash;my ontology paper. die, paper, die.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003estill, in a matter of hours, whether done successfully or done having failed, done will i be. and then, it\u0026rsquo;s party time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe thing that\u0026rsquo;s been keeping me going this week is the thought of recording a CD this christmas\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s right, i\u0026rsquo;m recording a CD with super-awesomex drummer david lipps. i\u0026rsquo;ve got about 12 or 13 songs written since i put out the Effortless ep, and it\u0026rsquo;s time those got recorded. no more shoddy dorm-room work, though\u0026ndash;dav and i went all out and got a ton of top-notch recording gear. if all goes well and god is with us, we will be spending 8 hours a day playing and recording (and of course working out to remain the buff studs that we are), and emerge sometime in january with a set of professionally-done songs. that is exciting.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"making a record"},{"content":"i am back in california for a week of final papers and final exams. i should be working on them right now, but my cursed laziness and procrastination prevents me. ah well. i recorded a song today. i could, theoretically, have recorded any as-of-yet unreleased jonathan lipps gem (and they are all gems, mind you), but i re-recorded \u0026rsquo;escapism is fantasy\u0026rsquo;, which, if you are a regular blog reader, you will recognize from the 17th of last month. maybe it\u0026rsquo;s because the lyrics were heavy on my mind today. in any case, some of you i\u0026rsquo;m sure missed out on the song the last time i posted it, for one reason or another, or perhaps because my linking to it was not as helpful as possible. this time, then, i\u0026rsquo;ll try to make myself completely clear. the line after this sentence is a link to the song!\nthis is a link to the song. click it now.\nthe previous line was a link, in case the bold font completely flew by you. there, that should do it. cheers, everyone.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/12/escapism-is-fantasy-again/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am back in california for a week of final papers and final exams. i should be working on them right now, but my cursed laziness and procrastination prevents me. ah well. i recorded a song today. i could, theoretically, have recorded any as-of-yet unreleased jonathan lipps gem (and they are \u003cem\u003eall\u003c/em\u003e gems, mind you), but i re-recorded \u0026rsquo;escapism is fantasy\u0026rsquo;, which, if you are a regular blog reader, you will recognize from the 17th of last month. maybe it\u0026rsquo;s because the lyrics were heavy on my mind today. in any case, some of you i\u0026rsquo;m sure missed out on the song the last time i posted it, for one reason or another, or perhaps because my linking to it was not as helpful as possible. this time, then, i\u0026rsquo;ll try to make myself completely clear. the line after this sentence is a link to the song!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"escapism is fantasy, again"},{"content":"not to continue with the theme of my last post, but i\u0026rsquo;d just like to say that i took no less than five whole minutes to pick what to listen to just now. organized by artist and album, i have simply to use my optical mouse\u0026rsquo;s scroll button to view any segment of my cd collection. then, i have simply to use the left button three times to spin any desired virtual disc. these actions combined can take no more than 1.5 seconds, and yet, the decision takes five minutes. extraordinary.\nmaybe music has preoccupied my thoughts recently because of the shows: sigur ros last saturday at the warfield, and pedro the lion tuesday at the great american music hall. the time has certainly passed for writing an emotion-driven entry about either show, since the high can last no more than a day or two (except, perhaps, in the case of sigur ros, due to the large amount of pot being smoked at their concert). moreover, no one, i think, could profit very much by hearing whatever thoughts i have about the shows. either such a person would like the artist, or not. if not, she certainly wouldn\u0026rsquo;t care. if so, the thoughts would boil down, for her, to whether or not the show was good. the answer is, yes.\nsigur ros was beautiful and haunting and tormented and insecure and fuzzily cynical and hopelessly joyful = YES it was a good show.\npedro the lion was gruff and embarrassed and hilarious and piercing and wise and never to be successfully heckled = YES it was a good show. i stand wholeheartedly behind my friend chris\u0026rsquo; assessment of the tour (he saw the orlando show): in many ways, going to this particular pedro the lion concert was very much like sex. and because i feel like being sensational, i won\u0026rsquo;t bother adding the necessary qualifiers to give you the correct context of that statement. or, perhaps i mean it just like that.\ni left two days early to come home for thanksgiving. my plane tuesday night was overbooked, and due to some quick thinking and walking i became the only volunteer off the flight. american airlines put me up in the wyndham hotel for 6 hours, put me on the first flight out wednesday morning, put me in first class, and put $300 in my pocket in the form of a voucher, all because they sold too many tickets. i love it. thanksgiving itself was great, and the first time i\u0026rsquo;ve had it in our house in orlando (even though we\u0026rsquo;ve lived here for three and a half years).\nstill, homework count is at 0, while movie count is at something like 5, so some things need to be ironed out in my schedule. i guess that\u0026rsquo;s why i\u0026rsquo;m staying here till thurs. of dead week.\ni am tired from waking up late, from walking barefoot on the hot sandpapery roof putting up christmas lights, from a few hours of football, from a too-big dinner, from the egg nog and cookies, the glow (the crisp, DVD glow) of the movie we just watched, and from wishing i was a jedi, or at least that magic was real or that i was a hero. i think i\u0026rsquo;m going to bed. maybe tomorrow i\u0026rsquo;ll wake up and realize that a jedi\u0026rsquo;s life is not really so envious. maybe i\u0026rsquo;ll realize that if magic was real it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be magic. maybe i\u0026rsquo;ll realize that there are all kinds of heroes and there\u0026rsquo;s nothing to stop me from being one.\nvirtual disc on spin: love | the juliana theory\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/pedro-is-like-sex/","summary":"\u003cp\u003enot to continue with the theme of my last post, but i\u0026rsquo;d just like to say that i took no less than five whole minutes to pick what to listen to just now. organized by artist and album, i have simply to use my optical mouse\u0026rsquo;s scroll button to view any segment of my cd collection. then, i have simply to use the left button three times to spin any desired virtual disc. these actions combined can take no more than 1.5 seconds, and yet, the decision takes five minutes. extraordinary.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"pedro is like sex"},{"content":"i do believe that i am defined by my CD collection. first, there is the fact that i have a CD collection\u0026ndash;most college students these days seem to owe their musical tastes to whatever mp3s they can get off kazaa. these people are like the mp3s themselves\u0026ndash;tinny, with the tops and bottoms of the audio spectrum cut off. the sound is in-your-face, shallow, and lacking in life. there is the related fact that you download a song, a two-or-three-minute pick-me-up, in lieu of buying an entire album\u0026ndash;the artist\u0026rsquo;s mind and soul for the space of months or years. offensive to me is the radio culture of \u0026lsquo;hits\u0026rsquo;, and the subsequent ignoring of the album in pursuit of the popular single.\nsecond, there is the size of my collection. it is, relatively speaking, large, consisting of nearly 200 discs and corresponding artwork. a substantial size is necessary for the definition i wished to show. imagine, to the contrary, a person X with only 20 CDs. the chances that there is some person Y with the same 20 CDs is, on balance, high. much higher than the chances that there is some person Y with the same 200 CDs as me. each CD i buy is added information about myself\u0026hellip;added specificity that becomes exponentially harder to randomly duplicate. here is an analogy: say you have a certain number of words with which you can describe yourself. if you have to describe yourself in 5 words, chances are that someone else would use those same 5 words. however, if you allow yourself the thousands of words that make an autobiography, it is inconceivable that someone else would unknowingly describe herself in exactly the same way. thus with each purchase of burned plastic i add telling lines to the sketch of myself.\nlastly, and most importantly, there is the extension. \u0026ldquo;extension\u0026rdquo; is a word used very precisely in set theory to refer to all the objects in a particular set. so, the extension of the set of letters in the english language is simply a - z. likewise, the extension of the set of my CDs is defined as those specific CDs which are in the set. obviously, this is what matters most in the whole dialectic, since it is the fact that i have one CD and not another that most exactly defines who i am. as before, each new CD says something about who i am and about what my personality is. for, what is personality save the union of all our choices past and present, which influence strongly even future choices? of course, we must assume here that in buying CDs i do in reality exercise a power of choice according to a certain axiom, namely that of only buying what ones likes, or thinks one will like. immediately, however, we run into a problem: what of old and no-longer-loved CDs? i certainly have some that i would no longer proudly display as part of my collection. in this case we can simply stipulate that the person may define his collection in light of the aforementioned axiom, thus ruling out disliked CDs from the outset.\nin the end, we can form the set JLCD to contain those CDs which i own and like. and, all that is required for this set to uniquely refer to me, and not anyone else, is that the extension of JLCD is unique among all sets of CDs in the world. more formally, the intersection of JLCD with any other set S of CDs cannot be such that JLCD is actually a subset thereof. if this result obtains in the world, and i believe that it does, or at least that there is an extremely high probability that it does, we are assured that i am correct in asserting that JLCD uniquely determines me.\nyou might think that the added claim that the previous result is sufficient for describing the totality of my person is unwarranted. unfortunately there is no way to logically demonstrate the truth of such a claim, but i\u0026rsquo;ve no fear here of stepping back from first-order logic and stating something without proof. music is my soul, and my soul is music. that is who i am, and so if anything is to be the embodiment of the sum total of me, why not the music that drives me in life? i suppose a better analogy would be that my music\u0026ndash;the music i listen to and the music i write\u0026ndash;draws a maze of arrows, all of which, pointing beyond nature at the forms which are actually the building blocks of my nature, trace where i come from and where i\u0026rsquo;m going.\nvirtual song on spin: \u0026ldquo;almost there\u0026rdquo; | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/jlcd/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei do believe that i am defined by my CD collection. first, there is the fact that i have a CD collection\u0026ndash;most college students these days seem to owe their musical tastes to whatever mp3s they can get off kazaa. these people are like the mp3s themselves\u0026ndash;tinny, with the tops and bottoms of the audio spectrum cut off. the sound is in-your-face, shallow, and lacking in life. there is the related fact that you download a \u003cem\u003esong\u003c/em\u003e, a two-or-three-minute pick-me-up, in lieu of buying an entire album\u0026ndash;the artist\u0026rsquo;s mind and soul for the space of months or years. offensive to me is the radio culture of \u0026lsquo;hits\u0026rsquo;, and the subsequent ignoring of the album in pursuit of the popular single.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"JLCD"},{"content":"i was sitting in the back of the room during cru tonight, listening to the speaker and trying to eat my quizno\u0026rsquo;s sub without making too much of a mess. unfortunately my requirement of taking the tomatoes off the sloppy TBG sandwich made this nearly impossible, and my antics must have drawn attention to myself, because a minute later i was singled out and called up front and the speaker was telling me about his daughter. people were laughing, but i had no clue what was going on, because i was still scooping some gooey guacamole off my hand-out and putting it in my mouth. don\u0026rsquo;t ask my why i chose to do this in front of a large group of people. i made the appropriate grunts of approval to the speaker\u0026rsquo;s comments and focused on the guac as he had some more fun at my expense. it was great.\nnext thing i knew, i was asked to chant a lament: 2 samuel 1:19-27. this is where david laments for the death of jonathan and saul. i\u0026rsquo;d never chanted anything before, but i made a go at it, and all of a sudden i forgot myself, forgot when i was, and became one with the grief of god\u0026rsquo;s servant over the passing of his best friend. my emotions were also strangely flooded and charged, since i was chant-singing verses of mourning for my namesake\u0026ndash;my self, almost. my voice died down finally and i was shaking, mostly from being nervous in front of a group, but also substantially from how cool it was to be involved with the words as they flew across barriers of time and culture. i\u0026rsquo;ve certainly never felt that engaged with a psalm before.\nwe ended the night singing the doxology. it\u0026rsquo;s hard to understate how meaningful that is.\ni am a philosopher by trade, but i have a suspicion that the root, the backdrop, the canvas of reality does not consist in platonic forms, propositions, the cartesian product of infinite sets, or linguistic acts.\ni suspect we will ultimately see that it is all poetry, thick with the living imagination of god.\nrandom song on spin: \u0026ldquo;priests and paramedics\u0026rdquo; | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/poetry-precedes-philosophy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei was sitting in the back of the room during cru tonight, listening to the speaker and trying to eat my quizno\u0026rsquo;s sub without making too much of a mess. unfortunately my requirement of taking the tomatoes off the sloppy TBG sandwich made this nearly impossible, and my antics must have drawn attention to myself, because a minute later i was singled out and called up front and the speaker was telling me about his daughter. people were laughing, but i had no clue what was going on, because i was still scooping some gooey guacamole off my hand-out and putting it in my mouth. don\u0026rsquo;t ask my why i chose to do this in front of a large group of people. i made the appropriate grunts of approval to the speaker\u0026rsquo;s comments and focused on the guac as he had some more fun at my expense. it was great.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"poetry precedes philosophy"},{"content":"the leonids of last night had nothing on the veritable storm of glittering, transient, dust daggers that was last year\u0026rsquo;s show. still, i was glad to give up a few hours of sleep and drive up to skyline in order to lie on a blanket on the top of a hill, watching the periodic larger-than-normal piece-of-space-crap become transcendentally something more for the blink of an eye.\ni\u0026rsquo;m sure someone, somewhere, has made an analogy between the human life and the brief glory of ultrafast burning dust, so i won\u0026rsquo;t bother. also, i\u0026rsquo;m not sure i would agree with it.\nin other news, it\u0026rsquo;s been confirmed by all reliable sources that i am in fact addicted to procrastination. useless procrastination, at that: i\u0026rsquo;m growing fat in addition to lazy. well, i\u0026rsquo;d better get back to my addiction.\nvirtual disc on spin: greatest hits | bjork\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/leonids-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe leonids of last night had nothing on the veritable storm of glittering, transient, dust daggers that was last year\u0026rsquo;s show. still, i was glad to give up a few hours of sleep and drive up to skyline in order to lie on a blanket on the top of a hill, watching the periodic larger-than-normal piece-of-space-crap become transcendentally something more for the blink of an eye.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m sure someone, somewhere, has made an analogy between the human life and the brief glory of ultrafast burning dust, so i won\u0026rsquo;t bother. also, i\u0026rsquo;m not sure i would agree with it.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"leonids 2002"},{"content":"i got frustrated with trying to put my thoughts into words here on the blog, so instead i wrote a song. listen to it here. (The word \u0026ldquo;here\u0026rdquo; in the previous sentence is a link, for those of you not prone to mouseovering)\nin other news, in the past few days i\u0026rsquo;ve had special dinner, played paintball, read the first two harry potter books, watched a few movies, played guitar, and contracted frostbite. though not necessarily in that order. one of the more salient features of this list, of course, is the fact that it makes no mention of schoolwork, or, more particularly, the logic problem set which is due tomorrow and has yet to be started. thus, i am off for a long night of work and little sleep.\nregards,\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/escapism-is-fantasy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei got frustrated with trying to put my thoughts into words here on the blog, so instead i wrote a song. listen to it \u003ca href=\"escapism_is_fantasy.mp3\"\u003ehere\u003c/a\u003e. (The word \u0026ldquo;here\u0026rdquo; in the previous sentence is a link, for those of you not prone to mouseovering)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein other news, in the past few days i\u0026rsquo;ve had special dinner, played paintball, read the first two harry potter books, watched a few movies, played guitar, and contracted frostbite. though not necessarily in that order. one of the more salient features of this list, of course, is the fact that it makes no mention of schoolwork, or, more particularly, the logic problem set which is due tomorrow and has yet to be started. thus, i am off for a long night of work and little sleep.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"escapism is fantasy"},{"content":"i hit the low point of autumn quarter 2002 friday morning. i had stayed up all the previous night (must be something about thursdays) doing a midterm for logic and reading some crap about rhetoric in the ancient near east for my greek class. i finally went to bed around 5am to catch 2 hours of sleep before getting to class at 7:30. when i woke up at 7, i despaired: the wind howled, and the rain lashed against my window in a constant thumping staccato. on any other day, i would have immediately gone back to bed, thanking god for the rain. everyone knows, of course, that you\u0026rsquo;re not expected to go to class if it\u0026rsquo;s raining. however, friday was different, since i had to give a presentation in greek. so i got myself up and psyched for the long trek to the quad \u0026ndash; just at, or over, a mile in distance.\nmy little black umbrella did little to help keep off the rain, though it was very useful in trying to pick me up off the ground and turning itself inside out. anyway, i got to class on time, only to see someone taping a sign on the door: \u0026ldquo;greek class cancelled today\u0026rdquo;. needless to say, i fumed, i raged, and i almost cried. then, with a resigned and broken sigh, i clutched my soaking jacket closer around my defeated frame, letting the cold seep in. utterly in hate with circumstance, i slogged through puddle after puddle back home, where i took off my sodden shoes and water-logged socks and fell into a fitful sleep that should never have been disturbed.\nthankfully, friday night more than made up for the horror of the morning. we had suites formal. the theme was \u0026ldquo;high school homecoming\u0026rdquo;, and the title for the evening was, \u0026ldquo;a night in heaven under the sea in paris under the stars\u0026rdquo;, no doubt a tribute to those geniuses of originality that were our high school student councils/governments/presidents. always early and on top of things, i asked the wonderful erin spokes if she would be my date for the event late thursday night, and she accepted! a group of about 20 friends went to p.f. chang\u0026rsquo;s for dinner, and then boarded huge charter buses full of (thankfully not too many) drunk people. we were shuttled to sinbad\u0026rsquo;s, a club in san francisco, where we danced the night away to hip-hop tunes.\nthere were the usual sketchy-stanford-dance-party-event antics going on, and therefore never any lack of entertaining/immoral behavior being realized merely feet from my person. still, our party survived mostly unscathed. i was exhausted when the dj shut things down at 1am, after two straight hours of being on the dance floor without a break or even a stretch. since i was still tired from thursday night (only 2 hours before \u0026lsquo;class\u0026rsquo;, remember, and then only another 2 before i had a meeting friday morning), i wasn\u0026rsquo;t on my best game, but no one could say that i didn\u0026rsquo;t get my groove on, what.\nall i\u0026rsquo;ve done today is shoot some paintballs in lake lagunita, so it was obviously very exciting. and that brings us to now, where i write what i\u0026rsquo;m listening to and then click \u0026lsquo;post \u0026amp; publish\u0026rsquo;.\nvirtual disc on spin: wings to fly | plankeye\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/it-was-a-dark-and-stormy-morning/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei hit the low point of autumn quarter 2002 friday morning. i had stayed up all the previous night (must be something about thursdays) doing a midterm for logic and reading some crap about rhetoric in the ancient near east for my greek class. i finally went to bed around 5am to catch 2 hours of sleep before getting to class at 7:30. when i woke up at 7, i despaired: the wind howled, and the rain lashed against my window in a constant thumping staccato. on any other day, i would have immediately gone back to bed, thanking god for the rain. everyone knows, of course, that you\u0026rsquo;re not expected to go to class if it\u0026rsquo;s raining. however, friday was different, since i had to give a presentation in greek. so i got myself up and psyched for the long trek to the quad \u0026ndash; just at, or over, a mile in distance.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"it was a dark and stormy morning..."},{"content":"you should all be very proud of me: today i skipped class for the first time. not that that itself is worthy of praise; rather, it\u0026rsquo;s the fact that i\u0026rsquo;m in my 6th week of instruction and haven\u0026rsquo;t yet skipped. a personal best, if not a straight-out world record. of course, since i fell, i fell hard, and skipped all three of my classes in favor of sleep, which is a beautiful and blessedly delicious way to skip.\nstill, more important things beg telling. i\u0026rsquo;m in sort of a dilemma, you see. friday, being, technically, the day after today, is the suites formal, which i plan on attending. unfortunately, to attend said formal i need a date, preferably female, as there seems to be very little chance of \u0026lsquo;going stag\u0026rsquo; and at the same time maintaining the illusion that i am in fact cool and socially normal and all the rest. normally, there would not be this mutual exclusion, but circumstances being what they are, there is. thus i have one day (less than 24hrs) to decide on a girl and ask her. i guess i should start thinking.\nin other news, i want to buy a giant hookah.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/wanted-giant-hookah/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eyou should all be very proud of me: today i skipped class for the first time. not that that itself is worthy of praise; rather, it\u0026rsquo;s the fact that i\u0026rsquo;m in my 6th week of instruction and haven\u0026rsquo;t yet skipped. a personal best, if not a straight-out world record. of course, since i fell, i fell hard, and skipped all three of my classes in favor of sleep, which is a beautiful and blessedly delicious way to skip.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"wanted: giant hookah"},{"content":"i didn\u0026rsquo;t go to sleep last night. now that i think back on it, there really was absolutely no reason i needed to stay up. i pulled a meaningless all-nighter, with no work needing to be done and, accordingly, nothing to show for it.\nstill, there is something fascinating about the hours between 3 and 5 am. i feel like, if any time is my time, that cold and pregnant third watch is mine. maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just that, since no other soul is awake then, i feel a legitimate and unchallenged monarch of that two-hour domain. i love the tension, the restlessness, the fear that if you drop off either something horrible will happen, or something amazingly beautiful will flicker briefly into being without consulting or notifying you, and then just as quickly disappear, all while your consciousness lays chained behind closed eyelids. there is no such a crisp, cold, and clear time as the dead of night just before dawn, and whenever i am awake during it i feel as if i might accidentally start an adventure.\nunfortunately, i used my free time last night searching the internet for long lost friends (from my old, more nerdily inhabited, days whiled away in the star wars cantina: an internet chat room on the wbs network), taking a shower of record length (probably close to an hour\u0026ndash;yes, i wasted a lot of water, yes i feel suitably bad about it), and listening to the four cds i bought on impulse yesterday at an exorbitant price.\ni did, of course, read a few chapters of mostly harmless, book five of the hitchhiker\u0026rsquo;s guide to the galaxy trilogy by douglas adams. it is a work of pure genius, as were the four novels before it. this is most clearly evidenced by the fact that his trilogy has five books in it: who else could boast of such a thing? anyway, i will very rarely laugh when i read books, even if they are freaking hilarious, and i laugh constantly when reading adams. ergo: the series is freaking hilarious times a billionfinity. ergo: read it.\nit struck me just now that, not only was i foolish enough to stay awake all night for no reason, which will throw my clock off and prevent me from designing a website today by 5:15 (an externally imposed deadline, of course), i actually went to my 8am class instead of going to bed. how dumb you can you get? i mean \u0026hellip; hey.\nvirtual disc on spin: ( ) | sigur ros\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/11/third-watch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei didn\u0026rsquo;t go to sleep last night. now that i think back on it, there really was absolutely no reason i needed to stay up. i pulled a meaningless all-nighter, with no work needing to be done and, accordingly, nothing to show for it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003estill, there is something fascinating about the hours between 3 and 5 am. i feel like, if any time is \u003cem\u003emy time\u003c/em\u003e, that cold and pregnant third watch is mine. maybe it\u0026rsquo;s just that, since no other soul is awake then, i feel a legitimate and unchallenged monarch of that two-hour domain. i love the tension, the restlessness, the fear that if you drop off either something horrible will happen, or something amazingly beautiful will flicker briefly into being without consulting or notifying you, and then just as quickly disappear, all while your consciousness lays chained behind closed eyelids. there is no such a crisp, cold, and clear time as the dead of night just before dawn, and whenever i am awake during it i feel as if i might accidentally start an adventure.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"third watch"},{"content":"i laid in the darkened room, eyes staring up at the ceiling. i was on my back, and the sound wafted in shimmering waves, alternatively of rain and moonlight, from the direction my head was pointing. the lights were off, but the blinds were open, allowing a ghostly pale yellow to filter in from the street lamps outside the apartment. the yellow carried enough photons to illuminate the white ceiling, and at the same time cause it to glow faintly at the edges; an optical illusion due to the surrounding darkness.\nalready i could begin to make metaphors for the experience, but we\u0026rsquo;ve not yet got to the crux of it. the light was just so, such that my eyes couldn\u0026rsquo;t exactly focus on anything at any particular depth in front of them. the ceiling was no help\u0026ndash;glowing ephemereally as it was, it completely failed as a point of reference. thus my focus involuntarily went up and down (or outwards and inwards, as it were), causing a most curious sensation.\nthis sensation was more or less perfectly symbolic of the music. for over an hour i was virtually comatose, willingly paralyzed by ( ), the new sigur ros album. it faded into and out of view, hazily, just as it flitted shadow-like away from my attempts to force it into a structure. heavily atmospheric, unbelievably sad, despairing even; yet, triumphant, brokenly joyful; annoyingly beautiful and implacably angelic. the hour passed, and when the room lights were flicked back on, dissipating the hovering cloak dripping with musical fantasy, it felt as if i\u0026rsquo;d gained a year, having spent it still and silent amidst the sorrowful singing.\nnever pass up a cd listening party for a band reputed to have the makings of genius, especially if that band is from iceland.\nvirtual disc on spin: agaetis byrjun | sigur ros\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/sigur-ros/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei laid in the darkened room, eyes staring up at the ceiling. i was on my back, and the sound wafted in shimmering waves, alternatively of rain and moonlight, from the direction my head was pointing. the lights were off, but the blinds were open, allowing a ghostly pale yellow to filter in from the street lamps outside the apartment. the yellow carried enough photons to illuminate the white ceiling, and at the same time cause it to glow faintly at the edges; an optical illusion due to the surrounding darkness.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sigur ros"},{"content":"a horrible feeling sank down and hung on my shoulders today as i ate three reese\u0026rsquo;s peanut butter cups and three bite-size snicker bars in rapid succession. the feeling consisted mostly in the following thought: \u0026ldquo;there will come a day, self, when you won\u0026rsquo;t be able to do this anymore.\u0026rdquo; and it\u0026rsquo;s certainly true. sooner or later my insane metabolism will slow down, and bite-size chocolate will become bite-size fat, instead of whatever happens to it now. the only solution, in looking at almost all the middle-aged people i know, is to set good eating and exercise habits now. habits suck, though. the only thing i\u0026rsquo;m really in the habit of doing is having bad habits. so we\u0026rsquo;ll see.\nin other news i am no longer going to england over thanksgiving, since i ended up finding cheap fares home after all, so i\u0026rsquo;m going to orlando. unfortunately i get in at 7pm thanksgiving day, so we\u0026rsquo;ll be having a late thanksgiving dinner. still, being with family will be great.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been \u0026ldquo;writing\u0026rdquo; a paper for the last few days and it has been hell. this is a new and scary experience for me, and i hope it ends up ok.\nfall retreat this weekend for crusade, so i\u0026rsquo;ll be out through sunday. should be pretty cool, but i have a tendency to get bored at these things and so stop paying attention. anyhow, i\u0026rsquo;m now officially procrastinating for that paper and other work, and this is something i promised not to do until friday, so\u0026hellip;au revoir.\nvirtual song on spin: \u0026ldquo;rooms and gardens\u0026rdquo; | appleseed cast\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/fat/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ea horrible feeling sank down and hung on my shoulders today as i ate three reese\u0026rsquo;s peanut butter cups and three bite-size snicker bars in rapid succession. the feeling consisted mostly in the following thought: \u0026ldquo;there will come a day, self, when you won\u0026rsquo;t be able to do this anymore.\u0026rdquo; and it\u0026rsquo;s certainly true. sooner or later my insane metabolism will slow down, and bite-size chocolate will become bite-size fat, instead of whatever happens to it now. the only solution, in looking at almost all the middle-aged people i know, is to set good eating and exercise habits now. habits suck, though. the only thing i\u0026rsquo;m really in the habit of doing is having bad habits. so we\u0026rsquo;ll see.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"fat"},{"content":"and that, in fact, is why i took to inventing languages. words are not tired revisions used to form the same expressions, that, despite any significant emotional cause, export a mundane sense to the listener. (this, is, of course, why we have made the writer\u0026rsquo;s craft the way it is \u0026ndash; to say something novel, rather, to say something in a novel and thereby more interesting/emotive way, we are forced to use already existing words while investing them with new meaning). no: new words are new. in creating a language i bring myself to a clean space, uncluttered by the gnarl of English; a space rather like a pristine snowscape. there is no need for devices like metaphor, because i can impute the full artistic meaning and emotion of my angst or joy in the words themselves. to me, this is power. i stand and survey my antarctic scene, devoid of everything save my own footprints, and unsullied by the mucking about of millions of other people who\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten what language is for. it is powerful because it is pure, a fresh start, an eden with all the potential beauty not yet crushed by brutal actuality. if i could, i would live there, and take that purity for my own cloak, leaving behind the sordid and mind-numbing particularism of the Present Age. i would speak new words in my language: the language of the Age to Come.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/logos/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eand that, in fact, is why i took to inventing languages. words are not tired revisions used to form the same expressions, that, despite any significant emotional cause, export a mundane sense to the listener. (this, is, of course, why we have made the writer\u0026rsquo;s craft the way it is \u0026ndash; to say something novel, rather, to say something in a novel and thereby more interesting/emotive way, we are forced to use already existing words while investing them with new meaning). no: new words are \u003cem\u003enew\u003c/em\u003e. in creating a language i bring myself to a clean space, uncluttered by the gnarl of English; a space rather like a pristine snowscape. there is no \u003cem\u003eneed\u003c/em\u003e for devices like metaphor, because i can impute the full artistic meaning and emotion of my angst or joy in the words \u003cem\u003ethemselves\u003c/em\u003e. to me, this is power. i stand and survey my antarctic scene, devoid of everything save my own footprints, and unsullied by the mucking about of millions of other people who\u0026rsquo;ve forgotten what language is for. it is powerful because it is pure, a fresh start, an eden with all the potential beauty not yet crushed by brutal actuality. if i could, i would live there, and take that purity for my own cloak, leaving behind the sordid and mind-numbing particularism of the Present Age. i would speak \u003cem\u003enew\u003c/em\u003e words in my language: the language of the Age to Come.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"logos"},{"content":"Nai silta an meira silveth nailoth, celda vue anma andusto em parith; eco silta an cern eleth, an iselyato ais em Vanorema. Silnova, seumadima nosiema, ler te\u0026rsquo;aledivuma felonni.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/message-in-a-bottle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNai silta an meira silveth nailoth, celda vue anma andusto em parith; eco silta an cern eleth, an iselyato ais em Vanorema. Silnova, seumadima nosiema, ler te\u0026rsquo;aledivuma felonni.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"message in a bottle"},{"content":"\u0026hellip;.and in return school fools me by letting me think i\u0026rsquo;ll get away with it. that is, until monday morning faces me with a ferocious, gloating, smile. \u0026ldquo;pay up!\u0026rdquo; he cries, and interest accrues each time i hit the snooze button. i realize the loan i took out from this sly banker in order to buy time is due, and i\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing to show. the new day is the repo-man, and my defaulted collateral consists of peace and a balanced existence.\nstill, i feel as if i\u0026rsquo;ve been spared my full share of consequences, and here i sit without too much to do this afternoon before i leave tomorrow for home. that\u0026rsquo;s right\u0026ndash;home. my aunt linda, elder sister of my dad, is getting married for the first time on saturday. i have the dubious honor of being cameraman for the event, and, while the honor may be in question, the advantage of such a situation is certainly not: i won\u0026rsquo;t have to sit and fidget for the entire ceremony.\nlast night i checked out and watched lock, stock, and two smoking barrels, precursor to the highly-if-hesitantly-and-carefully-recommended snatch. if a certain amount of gratuitous violence and one certainly gratuitous strip-bar scene don\u0026rsquo;t scare you (perhaps prudently) away, watch this movie. it is genius.\nin other news, i am attempting to go to england over thanksgiving break. don\u0026rsquo;t ask me why\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s a strange combination of wanderlust, escapism, forethought, playing the mileage game, wisdom, and stupidity. but, i\u0026rsquo;m hoping that it will be an official trend affect theory 217 event, in that premier stud chris nyffeler (aka nyffy, aka dj chris cross) might come. if we can pull it off, we may just have an altimar 3.5 on our hands, which would be totally sweet.\nnothing else interesting is really happening, save that i\u0026rsquo;m combating a number of physical ailments at the moment: ankle tendonitis, a recovering sprained toe, a recovering sprained finger, a recovering dislocated shoulder, a strained hip tendon, and, to top it off, a wart on my finger. needless to say, a number of these are fairly inhibitive as far as running, climbing, and playing ultimate frisbee go, so i\u0026rsquo;m not having the best of times in those areas.\nmy perspective, though, is sometimes realigned when i think of those who were never able to run at all, or those confined to a chair for the remainder of their lives. i really don\u0026rsquo;t have much room to complain.\nvirtual songs on spin: random shuffle of my 7.8GB cd-turned-mp3 collection. played end-to-end, it would take 5 days, 18 hours, 46 minutes, and 20 seconds to hear them all. i love music.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/and-now-im-injured/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;.and in return school fools me by letting me think i\u0026rsquo;ll get away with it. that is, until monday morning faces me with a ferocious, gloating, smile. \u0026ldquo;pay up!\u0026rdquo; he cries, and interest accrues each time i hit the snooze button. i realize the loan i took out from this sly banker in order to buy time is due, and i\u0026rsquo;ve got nothing to show. the new day is the repo-man, and my defaulted collateral consists of peace and a balanced existence.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"and now i'm injured"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;ve got it: i\u0026rsquo;ll fool school by not actually working, but instead checking out dvds from the library.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/aha/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ve got it: i\u0026rsquo;ll fool school by not actually working, but instead checking out dvds from the library.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"aha!"},{"content":"it\u0026rsquo;s 2am on a friday night and i\u0026rsquo;ve had a great day. apart from my 8 and 9am classes, it could almost have been a perfect day. i got an early start, performed suitably well in my school-related functions (even if i did act like an automaton that only very nearly passed the turing test), and went home to take care of some web business. that being done i had a beautiful lunch at bollard, before launching into an afternoon of quite litera[ri]lly novellic adventures. i read the last two or three hundred pages of my latest stephen r lawhead installment in one sitting. ah, the blessed feeling of the cool breeze mingled with sunshine through an open window while turning the pages of a good adventure, each page like a movie frame that when rolled at speed produces a sequence of fantastic images.\nsatisfied with my lazy indolence, i ousted my sluggish self from the suite and went to wilbur to play an hour and a half of pickup ultimate. i didn\u0026rsquo;t do well, but neither did anyone else really and it was low key and fun. then to dinner and back to the room to watch gladiator with nick bott. we both love that movie to a great extent, and we took full advantage of our new, beautiful surround sound system purchased at cost and well worth every penny. i\u0026rsquo;ve already discussed how powerful the score is, and the story is just as fantastic. each on its own has the power to bring that longing tear-tightness to my eyes, and both together is a rare cinematic experience indeed.\nalternating couch-sitting with physical activity, the next and most recent step of the day was broomball at the ice oasis in some as-yet-unidentified portion of the bay area near menlo park. i ran like a crazy man for about an hour and shouted generally unintelligible things in an attempt to guide our team into some sort of winning strategy; of course, nothing of the sort exists in broomball, but it was great fun anyway, and i had several very existential moments while sliding on my back on the ice, or while running full speed into a plexiglass window in order to \u0026ldquo;check\u0026rdquo; someone from the opposite team.\nof course, some of you may be wondering what i\u0026rsquo;ve been up to since october the third, but i\u0026rsquo;m afraid that for now most of that will go forever unnoted in this space. in any case, nothing of terrible importance happened, and i\u0026rsquo;ve used up my allotment of allowable non-important relata for the post, so it will have to pass. you can probably extrapolate most of my actions from my various involvements (groups) and commitments (classes), because these are the things in which i\u0026rsquo;ve poured my time.\nmy only disappointment recently is the my seeming inability to hang out with girls. i know there are lots of awesome ones around, but i can\u0026rsquo;t figure out what people do here, so i never have any reason to call anyone up to hang out. it\u0026rsquo;s this incomprehensible lack of creativity when it comes to thinking of ways to pass the time, or perhaps it\u0026rsquo;s a standard of which ways are cool that is set far too high. whatever, the point is that i think it would be good for me to hang out with people besides my guy friends, so that i don\u0026rsquo;t go around thinking the world is all like guys and guy emotional frameworks, etc\u0026hellip; or maybe i\u0026rsquo;m not so wise and noble. maybe i have no reasons or justification, and need none. maybe the bottom line is that it\u0026rsquo;s just super lame to sit around with the drawmates and talk about hanging out with girls, a topic which has such a frequent occurrence in our conversations that the negative implication is straightforward: we talk about because we don\u0026rsquo;t, and because it\u0026rsquo;s not a natural part of our social lives. and maybe it\u0026rsquo;s this way with most stanford guys, apart from their predatory party stalkings. whatever it is it\u0026rsquo;s stupid, and i\u0026rsquo;ve spent far too much time staggering drunkenly around an issue that\u0026rsquo;s not even clear and that i wasn\u0026rsquo;t planning on talking about.\nmaybe i should just shut up and try and live out existential moments like this guy.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/lobster-boy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit\u0026rsquo;s 2am on a friday night and i\u0026rsquo;ve had a great day. apart from my 8 and 9am classes, it could almost have been a perfect day. i got an early start, performed suitably well in my school-related functions (even if i did act like an automaton that only very nearly passed the turing test), and went home to take care of some web business. that being done i had a beautiful lunch at bollard, before launching into an afternoon of quite litera[ri]lly novellic adventures. i read the last two or three hundred pages of my latest stephen r lawhead installment in one sitting. ah, the blessed feeling of the cool breeze mingled with sunshine through an open window while turning the pages of a good adventure, each page like a movie frame that when rolled at speed produces a sequence of fantastic images.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"lobster boy"},{"content":"and welcome to our new home. hopefully you will notice an increase in speed!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/up/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eand welcome to our new home. hopefully you will notice an increase in speed!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"up"},{"content":"*changing servers for jonathanlipps.com\u0026hellip;this site may disappear for a bit\u0026hellip;*\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/down/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e*changing servers for jonathanlipps.com\u0026hellip;this site may disappear for a bit\u0026hellip;*\u003c/p\u003e","title":"down"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;m trying hard to remember what\u0026rsquo;s happened in the past few weeks. i guess it\u0026rsquo;s been at least 3 since i really said anything of importance.\nmy last week at home after portugal, before stanford, was really fun. i went up to gainesville for a few days to hang out with my brother and best friends there. we watched movies, ate big reds, smoked pipes, climbed rocks, and had an all around freakin awesome time. chris domeck went up with me, so the whole posse was there, sans andy, who\u0026rsquo;s in indiana.\na few days later i went with mawk to a rock show at the social in downtown orlando, with embodyment and blindside headlining. it was a dope show, and i totally rocked out hardcore. i felt as if i\u0026rsquo;d gone through an intense workout afterwards, when the seething suffocation of the mosh pit faded. needless to say, both bands just freakin kicked, and it was awesome to hang out with sean a bit before their set and catch up on life.\nlet\u0026rsquo;s see, what else\u0026hellip;i went down to west palm beach to spend a day with my grandma, aunt linda and her new fiance peter. it was an interesting dynamic, as i\u0026rsquo;d never really spent alone time as an adult with my extended family like that (i.e., without immediate family also there). however, i would classify the time as really cool, because i was able to actually get to know them as people and not just family that gives presents at christmas. on the way up i stopped to see hannah at palm beach university for about 5 minutes\u0026hellip;a totally random little surprise.\none of those days i went to see the sunrise at cocoa beach, which has become a solemn tradition for me. sometimes alone, sometimes with other people: whatever the case it\u0026rsquo;s always a huge mechanism for centering my life on what is important (christ) and sorting everything [else] in its right place. incidentally, the beach sunrise has become a sort of running theme or motif for myself and thereby my online presence, thus the new jonathanlipps.com design has as its centerpiece a picture i took on my most recent outing. anyways, i invited my friend amy to come with me, and that was fun. i was glad to be able to hang out with her several times while i was back, because she\u0026rsquo;s cool of course, and then also because most of my friends were away and i was pretty bored!\nsoon, of course, my halcyon week of summer laziness and fun came to an end. i flew back on friday the 20th, and got in to stanford that night. miraculously i got into my suite, though the move-in date wasn\u0026rsquo;t until sunday. unfortunately, i didn\u0026rsquo;t have a key. neither did i have any of my boxes which i\u0026rsquo;d scattered to various peoples\u0026rsquo; homes for free storage. my room being more or less uninhabitable, then, i roamed around campus trying to see if any friends were around. to that end i joined the infamous orientation weekend band run, and went along with it from start to finish. ultimately i saw just about everyone whom i was expecting to be on campus there, and some besides. more importantly, it took up a lot of time and made me feel my travel exhaustion to the point where i was able to sleep on the bare mattress in my room.\nsaturday looked a little brighter, though smelled a little duller because of the cold that somehow sprung up then, whether because of the traveling or because of the unwise sleeping arrangements. i participated in crusade\u0026rsquo;s one-day \u0026lsquo;retreat\u0026rsquo; where we planned what the quarter was going to look like. crusade planning meetings were to take up the bulk of the next week for some reason, and sunday, monday, and wednesday nights were thus occupied.\neventually i was able to get my boxes from kingscote, sammy, and the millers as they trickled in at various times and in various quantities. their arrival was coordinated with that of my drawmates, who began to arrive on sunday and were rounded out on tuesday with dave guo. those few days were filled with unpacking, getting things organized, choosing classes, and crusade stuff. from that point things have been a little blurry, and probably a lot more uninteresting to relate. basically i\u0026rsquo;ve embarked on a seriously hard quarter and between schoolwork, getting our apartment ready, playing a rocking show last thursday, and whatever else, i haven\u0026rsquo;t had time to do much of anything fun. sad, yes.\nthe pace seems to continue unabated, and i\u0026rsquo;m sitting here writing only because i\u0026rsquo;m waiting for my laundry to finish drying so i can go to bed, and i\u0026rsquo;m too brain-fried to continue reading \u0026ldquo;ontic decisions\u0026rdquo;, by willard quine. i really want to quote a paragraph of that text, just so you can see what an impossibility it is to actually do anything remotely considered reading to these words. better words would be parsing, translating, or deciphering. as you can imagine, 40 pages of deciphering is an amazingly daunting task, though our professor seems to conflate that with the commonplace notion of \u0026ldquo;reading\u0026rdquo;. sigh.\nstill, it has been fun to start classes at the graduate level and at least feel like i am not the least comprehending one in the group.\nwell, it seems i\u0026rsquo;ve run out of things to say. oh yeah, i turned 20. that was fun. and guess what? i actually got a birthday present from friends here! you know what it was? a GUN! a paintball gun. that\u0026rsquo;s right. i\u0026rsquo;m so excited. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to shoot stuff with paint. \u0026ldquo;go go go!\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;fire in the hole!\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;you take the point\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;affirmative\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;get outta there she\u0026rsquo;s gonna blow!\u0026rdquo;\nthat should round it out. speaking of round, i missed my favorite live band tonight because i had responsibilities at crusade to lead worship. sorry, my spacecoaster! commitments come before shows, though i\u0026rsquo;d naturally cast it the reverse. i do try.\nautumn quarter 2002: here goes nothing, with all the love and fury i can muster. lord help me!\nvirtual disc on spin: my spacecoaster | heartstrings\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/10/end-of-summer-happenings/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m trying hard to remember what\u0026rsquo;s happened in the past few weeks. i guess it\u0026rsquo;s been at least 3 since i really said anything of importance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003emy last week at home after portugal, before stanford, was really fun. i went up to gainesville for a few days to hang out with my brother and best friends there. we watched movies, ate big reds, smoked pipes, climbed rocks, and had an all around freakin awesome time. chris domeck went up with me, so the whole posse was there, sans andy, who\u0026rsquo;s in indiana.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"end-of-summer happenings"},{"content":"i am moved in. class starts tomorrow. and i\u0026rsquo;m definitely not ready for the hardest quarter of my stanford career.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/09/here-we-go/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am moved in. class starts tomorrow. and i\u0026rsquo;m definitely not ready for the hardest quarter of my stanford career.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"here we go!"},{"content":"*in the process of moving into suites\u0026hellip;hold on\u0026hellip;.*\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/09/back-at-stanford/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e*in the process of moving into suites\u0026hellip;hold on\u0026hellip;.*\u003c/p\u003e","title":"back at stanford"},{"content":"portugal was really fun.\nlast wednesday we flew out of orlando at 2pm, to miami and then across the atlantic to madrid, spain, on an iberia flight. the flight was nice because we were surprisingly upgraded from coach to business class\u0026ndash;a fantastic difference in service and comfort. going against the spin of the earth, we arrived in madrid thursday morning, only to smoosh ourselves on a crowded 1-hour commuter flight to lisbon.\nthursday and friday i spent at our hotel, the carlton palace, which was originally a noble family\u0026rsquo;s residence and recently renovated as a hotel. it was rated 5-star, but i would certainly class it as better quality and service per dollar than any other 5-star hotel you could find. my hours were divided between reading, sleeping by the pool, working out, and eating. and eat we did\u0026hellip;for the portuguese, dinner is an event which requires at least two hours to finish, and one which doesn\u0026rsquo;t generally start until after 9pm. thus, dinner was, most days, the last thing i did before sleeping. a bit of a change from school culture, where i would generally only go to bed after second dinner.\ni won\u0026rsquo;t bother telling about the restaurants we visited for dinner over the seven days, because they defy description. let it suffice to say that not one was disappointing, and the food and wine at each were so exquisite as to make me smile and sigh happily just at the bare thought of remembrance. one particular meal, fresh-caught stone bass cooked with bananas, has entrenched itself as my favorite gastronomic experience of all time. perhaps not as interesting was the fact that i served as our group\u0026rsquo;s interpreter at a number of meals, because out of the 30 of us, i was the only one that had learned any portuguese at all prior to the trip. i will say that i fared reasonably well, despite the occasional surprise when the dishes came out.\napart from dinners, i only went into town three times (our hotel was very much on the outskirts, so to get to downtown one had to take a taxi, but they were very cheap): once on a tour bus that took our group on a 4-hour tour of the city and some of the most salient monuments, once to visit a castela do sao jorge (the castle of st. jorge) and the shopping district, and once to a roadside market sort of deal. so, all told, i didn\u0026rsquo;t get around too much\u0026hellip;.however, i think i did soak in quite a bit of the city\u0026rsquo;s atmosphere the times i did go out, and it was nice to just stay at the hotel and relax, like a legitimate vacation.\nsome other highlights of the trip:\nspending a few hours with my parents learning about port wine and some of its finer points from a vendor in the hotel\nsleeping for 6 hours in the sun by the pool one day\nlate night cigars and port with some of the men in the group, discussing non-profit business tactics, banking strategies, philosophy, and ancient greek\ntaking a risk at the hotel lounge and ordering an unknown cocktail, and receiving a pepto-bismol-pink beverage with a little umbrella on the top\ndressing up every day\nbecoming a minor connoisseur of white wine\ntalking with cab drivers in portuguese\ntalking with laura, the only other sub-40-yr-old on the trip, who goes to cal poly\nwatching terminator 2 in portuguese\nnot checking e-mail and not having a phone\nflying home on september 11th, with all the flights less than half full, and reflecting on the meaning of that\nhopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of what things were like. on the whole i am very refreshed and relaxed, and looking forward to my last week at home before i go back to stanford!\ndisc on spin: a rush of blood to the head | coldplay\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/09/lisbon-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eportugal was really fun.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003elast wednesday we flew out of orlando at 2pm, to miami and then across the atlantic to madrid, spain, on an iberia flight. the flight was nice because we were surprisingly upgraded from coach to business class\u0026ndash;a fantastic difference in service and comfort. going against the spin of the earth, we arrived in madrid thursday morning, only to smoosh ourselves on a crowded 1-hour commuter flight to lisbon.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"lisbon 2002"},{"content":"tomorrow i start my grand september adventure: portugal. i\u0026rsquo;ve never been to the country, nor do i know anything about it. these two factors make me at once excited and a bit nervous. thankfully, i\u0026rsquo;ve been learning trying to learn portuguese this summer, so i\u0026rsquo;ll feel a little more confident in the unfamiliar environment.\nnot that i\u0026rsquo;ll be out on the streets needing to use my language skills anyway\u0026ndash;my home away from home will be the carlton palace hotel, a designated national monument and 5-star accomodation. within the hotel and its grounds are gardens, restaurants, workout rooms, an indoor track, 2 indoor swimming pools, hot tubs, saunas, sweat rooms, and, of course, a gymnasium (for the dogeball, i\u0026rsquo;m assuming). with all this and the free in-room nintendo system, i don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;ll ever need to leave the place.\nstill, it would be a horrible tragedy if i didn\u0026rsquo;t get out and explore lisbon or the nearby beaches, at least. such is what i plan on doing, then, perhaps in between the hot tub and the pickup dodgeball.\ni am taking the computer, but more for watching dvds on the plane than for checking e-mail or blogging, so keep that in mind if you were planning on trying to get a hold of me this week. all that being said, adieu, and good night. in 12 hours i\u0026rsquo;ll be on a plane to miami to catch a plane to madrid to catch a plane to lisbon.\naté a volta!\nestou escutando a: learning to breathe | switchfoot\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/09/daring-to-move/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etomorrow i start my grand september adventure: portugal. i\u0026rsquo;ve never been to the country, nor do i know anything about it. these two factors make me at once excited and a bit nervous. thankfully, i\u0026rsquo;ve been learning trying to learn portuguese this summer, so i\u0026rsquo;ll feel a little more confident in the unfamiliar environment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enot that i\u0026rsquo;ll be out on the streets needing to use my language skills anyway\u0026ndash;my home away from home will be the carlton palace hotel, a designated national monument and 5-star accomodation. within the hotel and its grounds are gardens, restaurants, workout rooms, an indoor track, 2 indoor swimming pools, hot tubs, saunas, sweat rooms, and, of course, a gymnasium (for the dogeball, i\u0026rsquo;m assuming). with all this and the free in-room nintendo system, i don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;ll ever need to leave the place.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"daring to move"},{"content":"and now, part 3 of the DiscMagnet™ saga: coordinated assault\ni knew that the cunning of the evil monster holding my 3 discs captive was too great to be overcome by myself alone, so on thursday i recruited a team of hardcore disc-rescue veterans to help with the cause. the members of this newly-formed counter-discnapping force were as follows:\nteam leader: jonathan lipps\ncallsign: throwmaster flex\nskills: insane speed, tactical genius, looking dark and cool in a trench coat\njob: strategy, execution coordination, primary munitions expenditure\nteam member: marie white\ncallsign: hilariokins\nskills: having a car, finding dvd players\njob: getaway driver, munitions management, taunting the enemy\nteam member: james boyd\ncallsign: boyd, james boyd\nskills: knife fighting, the stickshift, commando training\njob: secondary munitions expenditure, tactical advising, shooting things\nwith this intrepid group i was ready. first, hilariokins and i went to safeway munitions factory to gear up, buying 200 ft of intense string (really intense), and 2 lbs of hot tamales. then it was back to the battle field\u0026ndash;the engineering quad\u0026ndash;after stopping by kingscote to pick up the secondary munitions\u0026ndash;a bundle of coat hangers.\nboyd, james boyd, arrived not long after we did and surveyed the scene. then, the team arrayed for stealthy combat, we tied one end of the string around a large rock (probably 4-5 lbs). i threw this rock over one side of the beast, and it fell directly through its gaping maw to the ground in the center. carefully i retreived the rock and string, now neatly straddling one of the four edges of the DiscMagnet™, and launched it a second time, over the opposite edge. success again\u0026ndash;now the string was thrown completely over the top of the entire gargantuan.\nhilariokins and boyd, james boyd attached the secondary munitions to the long end of the primary munitions, and we had our Rescue Sweep Device, or RSD. thus armed with our powerful RSD, we used it to scour the high and invisible surface, causing, i believe, incredible pain to our nemesis in the process. and, lo and behold, the two s.m.u.t. discs were caught in our RSD and flew happily and freely from the top of the monstrosity. victory!!, we cried.\nalas, we had awakened the sleeping monster who heard our victory cheer, and it became immediately enraged, thrashing this way and that, until our RSD was mangled and useless. we tried in vain for the next half hour to retrieve the s.w.u.t. frisbee, a beautiful disc that should never have been captured in the first place, but, as i said, it was in vain. we threw away the element of surprise, and the DiscMagnet™ was once again the master of its domain.\nstill, two out of three is not bad, and we were glad to have saved any discs at all from the hideous thing\u0026rsquo;s clutches. perhaps when i arrive back at stanford i will go on another reconnaissance mission and see if disc #1 is still alive, or if she has been devoured by the monster.\nfor now, though, the fight against the Stanford DiscMagnet™ is finished, and i consider myself the victor. we all know, moreover, that the victor is he to whom go the spoils. thus with pride and sincerity i claim the following spoils: world peace, love, free taco bell for eternity, and a girlfriend. now i just need to find who exactly it is who gives out these spoils.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/09/part-3-coordinated-assault/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eand now, part 3 of the DiscMagnet™ saga: \u003cstrong\u003ecoordinated assault\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei knew that the cunning of the evil monster holding my 3 discs captive was too great to be overcome by myself alone, so on thursday i recruited a team of hardcore disc-rescue veterans to help with the cause. the members of this newly-formed counter-discnapping force were as follows:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eteam leader: jonathan lipps\u003cbr\u003e\ncallsign: throwmaster flex\u003cbr\u003e\nskills: insane speed, tactical genius, looking dark and cool in a trench coat\u003cbr\u003e\njob: strategy, execution coordination, primary munitions expenditure\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part 3: coordinated assault"},{"content":"\u0026hellip;..and i\u0026rsquo;m off home. it was a great summer\u0026hellip;i\u0026rsquo;m extremely glad i stayed and worked at stanford. now time for a little r\u0026amp;r before the affectionately pre-dubbed \u0026ldquo;hell quarter\u0026rdquo; kicks in.\ncoming soon: part 3 of the DiscMagnet™ saga.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/goodbye-kingscote/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u0026hellip;..and i\u0026rsquo;m off home. it was a great summer\u0026hellip;i\u0026rsquo;m extremely glad i stayed and worked at stanford. now time for a little r\u0026amp;r before the affectionately pre-dubbed \u0026ldquo;hell quarter\u0026rdquo; kicks in.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ecoming soon: part 3 of the DiscMagnet™ saga.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"goodbye kingscote"},{"content":"last friday at around 4pm dan, dave and i loaded up dave\u0026rsquo;s ford previa van with all of our hiking gear and set out north. we stopped at rei san carlos to pick up some important details, and then we were off to a very slow drive to yosemite. normally a 4-hour drive, we didn\u0026rsquo;t get to the valley till 11pm. still, it was worth it\u0026ndash;my first glimpse of yosemite was of el capitan in the moonlight, faintly glowing as the light grey of the granite reflected the ghostly rays. i wasn\u0026rsquo;t particularly prepared for the immensity and grandeur of the rock, and we stood on the side of the road and watched for a few minutes before driving the last few miles to curry village, near the base of half-dome, where we parked.\nwe were all probably a little tired from the tedious drive, but excited to be out of the car and ready to be on our way. we stashed our extra food underneath the car so that bears wouldn\u0026rsquo;t rip the car open trying to get at it, stretched a little bit, then started walking the mile or so to the trailhead. at the base we said a quick prayer for safety before beginning the epic trek. we opted to go up the mist trail, a shorter and much steeper trail than the john muir, until it intersected john muir at nevada falls. the first hour of the hike was fairly intense, and most of the going was up narrow stairs hewn out of granite and placed at precarious angles along the sides of the mountain.\nbears are more or less numerous in the forested yosemite valley, and night is their hunting time, so we had to be careful to make a continuous stream of conversation lest we be too quiet and catch a bear unawares. so with all the talking and stair-hiking we were pretty exhausted by the time we reached nevada. we ate our only trail food, a ration of 2 granola bars each, and refilled our nalgenes with water filtered from the stream above the falls. my pack had a platypus hydration system, which i found to be the most fantastic thing in the world, and which lasted all the way to the summit.\nafter our very steep introduction, the relatively level section of john muir just past the falls was a welcome break, but the odd sand floor made the going a little slow. still, it was nice, because we were able to turn off our headlamps and walk like stealthy (but noisy) wraiths, our shadows just as visible as ourselves under the light of the moon. soon the trail started cutting back and forth uphill, and we passed the first of the many hikers we were to see on our ascent. as it turned out, there were probably 4 or 5 other largish groups of hikers who were attempting the summit that night.\nuntil we neared the top, the hike was more or less uneventful, staring at the ground and plodding quickly up the steepening trail. we did make one half-an-hour-long error where we missed a fork to the summit path in the dark, and didn\u0026rsquo;t realize it for about a mile. unfortunately for those who were just close enough behind us to see our lights, they followed us astray. still, not much damage was done and we went back and found the missing fork. from there the cardiovascular nature of our hike increased threefold, and we sweated and pushed our way up neverending winds of stone and forest, tired, but excited about the adventure and wanting to push our endurance some.\nfinally, we got to The Stairs\u0026ndash;steep, narrow, and dangerously sandy prismatized rocks providing little better footing than the granite slabs surrounding them on the last leg to The Cables. we gritted our teeth and pushed up hundreds of them. eventually dan and i forsook the stairs for the smoother, if more dangerous and adventurous route of the rock wall. it was quite angled, but not too much for a good scramble with dan\u0026rsquo;s 5.10 approach shoes and my grippy trail runners. at the top of that second-to-last peak, i got a glimpse of the cables for the first time, just across a small dip. i got really excited. from my elevated vantage point it looked like the twin metal cables ran at a nearly vertical angle to the top of half-dome. as we got closer, i saw that the angle probably wasn\u0026rsquo;t more than 45 degrees. still, 45 degrees is more than it sounds like.\nthe next 15 minutes were spent gloves gripping the cables and pulling myself up, step by careful step, to the top. it was only when i finally crested the last round that the elevation hit me, and i could tell that the air was a little thinner\u0026ndash;the final exertion had made me more aware. half-dome stands over 8,000 feet above sea level, and the base of the valley around 3,000, if i remember correctly. so, we had hiked 8 miles in length, and 1 mile in height, to get to the top.\ni can only say that i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to do it again\u0026ndash;as i stepped out on the highest rock on the summit and looked around at the moonlight panorama that greeted me, i was immensely joyful. there is a perfect 360 degree view of truly amazing scenery. to call it \u0026ldquo;scenery\u0026rdquo; seems a little blasphemous. \u0026ldquo;scenery\u0026rdquo; is used to decorate stages for school plays. what i saw were raw, huge mountains thrust upwards from the earth in an immense ring, covered in beautiful coniferous forest, shining with a dim white light, the photons of which reached my eyes across a phenomenal space: clear, without sign or sound of the ravages of human progress. a giant frosty field, the stars gleamed like cold, bright diamonds as the wind whipped across my body, carrying 40-degree-fahrenheit air. i was exhausted, sore, and happy.\nthe time was 4:30am, roughly 5 hours after our embarking. to our delight and credit, we had reached the top before any of the other groups, all of which started hours before us. thus for about an hour we were the masters of the yosemite early morning, and we used our reign to thank god for his creation.\nthe spectacle, fortunately, was not yet over: the sunrise was yet to come. we hunkered down in between some rocks to fight off the cold, and made hot chocolate with dave\u0026rsquo;s whisperlite stove. thus armed, we made it through until sunrise, which greeted us like a color brush to a black-and-white world. all i\u0026rsquo;d seen for so long was the dull (enchanting nonetheless) palette of the moon, so the sun surprised me with its color as much as its warmth. we expressed our delight at dawn by cooking up instant oatmeal for breakfast\u0026ndash;3 packets each, and i\u0026rsquo;m surprised we weren\u0026rsquo;t starving for more.\nafter the sun had been sufficiently raised in the sky, we explored the enormous top of half-dome, chatting occasionally with the others who had finally made it to the top for sunrise. we found a nice rounded crest looking west at the shadow of our monolith, and each had a celebratory cigar, brought specifically to enjoy on the summit.\nsooner or later we decided that we had better begin our descent while we were still awake, since none of us had slept in 24 hours and we might have begun to fade fast. we geared up, then went down the cables. going down was nothing like going up\u0026ndash;i would grab hold of the cables, give a little jump, and slide from one pole to the next, feet in the air below me. in this fashion i sped down the side in record time. dan was right behind and dave joined us shortly.\nfrom there the descent was mainly mechanical\u0026ndash;we moved our feet quickly as we dreamed of the large pizza we would devour upon reaching curry village at the base. all told, excluding one stop at nevada falls to wash feet in the cold stream, we made it down in under 3 hours, following the longer john muir trail from nevada instead of mist. the last half mile of the trail, our legs were so sore that we had to jog, to ease the joints and relieve some tension from muscles. but finally, we made it back and had our ginormous pizza.\nfood was simply marvelous, but we needed more\u0026ndash;sleep. we layed down in various ridiculous positions in dave\u0026rsquo;s van and napped for a good 3 hours before waking up and deciding that it was time to head back. the original plan had been to camp at yosemite (or outside, for free) saturday night, but we figured that that would be superfluous, since no more events were planned. thus we loaded up the car and made record time back: 3 hours and 15 minutes.\nthe weekend was most definitely amazing, and seemed like two amazing weekends for the amount of time i was awake. it\u0026rsquo;s always awesome to see completely stunning examples of god\u0026rsquo;s power and beauty, not to mention the little touches like grace and love.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/half-dome-night-hike/","summary":"\u003cp\u003elast friday at around 4pm dan, dave and i loaded up dave\u0026rsquo;s ford previa van with all of our hiking gear and set out north. we stopped at rei san carlos to pick up some important details, and then we were off to a very slow drive to yosemite. normally a 4-hour drive, we didn\u0026rsquo;t get to the valley till 11pm. still, it was worth it\u0026ndash;my first glimpse of yosemite was of el capitan in the moonlight, faintly glowing as the light grey of the granite reflected the ghostly rays. i wasn\u0026rsquo;t particularly prepared for the immensity and grandeur of the rock, and we stood on the side of the road and watched for a few minutes before driving the last few miles to curry village, near the base of half-dome, where we parked.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"half-dome night hike"},{"content":"i wish i could continue with part 3 of the DiscMagnet™ saga. unfortunately, i am going out of town for the weekend.\ndan and dave evans and i are leaving today for yosemite. we aim to get to the park and find a campground by around 8pm, then rest for a few hours before our ascent hike up half dome. it\u0026rsquo;s a full moon (or just about), so as long as we stay clear of bears it should be a beautiful and surreal experience. we aim to have breakfast on the summit as the sun comes up over the valley, and then take the rest of saturday to hike back, relax, and maybe do some climbing if we can find a good spot.\ni am all geared up after my trip to rei yesterday, and i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to crank out the uphill miles under the ethereal white light of the moon. i\u0026rsquo;ll be back sunday.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/pause-for-yosemite/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei wish i could continue with part 3 of the DiscMagnet™ saga. unfortunately, i am going out of town for the weekend.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edan and dave evans and i are leaving today for yosemite. we aim to get to the park and find a campground by around 8pm, then rest for a few hours before our ascent hike up half dome. it\u0026rsquo;s a full moon (or just about), so as long as we stay clear of bears it should be a beautiful and surreal experience. we aim to have breakfast on the summit as the sun comes up over the valley, and then take the rest of saturday to hike back, relax, and maybe do some climbing if we can find a good spot.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"pause for yosemite"},{"content":"i took some time yesterday and followed through with my earlier plan (see the 19th\u0026rsquo;s post) to do some reconnaissance and strategizing. 1200 hours found me sneaking around the top floor of the durand engineering building looking for roof access. i found one in the corner of an odd little atrium, and scaled it with my kodak Information-Gathering Super-Device™, or IGSD for short. after pushing aside the heavy trap door to the roof, i found myself standing amidst a rather alarming collection of satellite receivers, radar arrays, and other obviously nefarious pieces of pointy metal and wires.\nnotwithstanding, i got some great shots of my captive discs with the IGSD, making sure to stay as close to the roofline as possible to avoid detection. i have decided to put the results of my espionage up here. click on the thumbnail to view the annotated versions of the IGSD stills, one from a dangerous location quite close to the DiscMagnet™, and one from the top of durand.\nin the next few days i\u0026rsquo;ll have to use this information to make a legitimate rescue plan. i only hope that the discs have been working out and preparing for escape, so that they will not be caught unawares when i come for them.\nvirtual disc on spin: can you hear us | david crowder\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/part-2-reconnaissance/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei took some time yesterday and followed through with my earlier plan (see the 19th\u0026rsquo;s post) to do some reconnaissance and strategizing. 1200 hours found me sneaking around the top floor of the durand engineering building looking for roof access. i found one in the corner of an odd little atrium, and scaled it with my kodak Information-Gathering Super-Device™, or IGSD for short. after pushing aside the heavy trap door to the roof, i found myself standing amidst a rather alarming collection of satellite receivers, radar arrays, and other obviously nefarious pieces of pointy metal and wires.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part 2: reconnaissance"},{"content":"there are four objects. three of them are frisbees that belong to me. one stanford women\u0026rsquo;s ultimate, and two stanford men\u0026rsquo;s ultimate discs. discraft ultrastar 175g \u0026ndash; a beautifully overpriced and addicting piece of molded plastic.\nthe fourth object is the Stanford DiscMagnet™, located in the engineering quad and better known as the 11th hole of the stanford disc golf course (or one of the courses). it has the mysterious property of attracting plastic discs ( my discs in particular) in the same way as a physics class magnet attracts iron filings, and has ruthlessly stolen the three aforementioned discs from me while playing the 11th hole.\nnormally, i would call it the way of the game, the world, or the little faeries that must exist in frisbees to make them spin so fast and perform nature-defying feats like the \u0026lsquo;scooper\u0026rsquo;. however, total merchandise currently beached on top of the DiscMagnet™ sculpture approaches $30. this chafes, since it\u0026rsquo;s the worth of at least two CDs, gone to waste on top of a glorified \u0026rsquo;techy\u0026rsquo; tin can. not to mention the fact that my supply of discs is rapidly diminishing.\nthus with steeled will i convinced dan to go with me last night at 11pm to the engineering quad in order to retrieve my discs. we brought our climbing gear, rope, and sharp wits to battle the complacently stolid (yet smirking, i know) fiend. unfortunately also sharp were the edges of the overhung top of the DiscMagnet™, making it an impossibility to use the rope and climb to the top. we explored other ideas of lifting ourselves to the top of the 30-foot beast, but none of them had an acceptable risk factor. we were willing to save the frisbees, but not to lose our lives in the process.\nmy last idea was to take a bite (a loop) of rope and attempt to toss it completely over the top through a hole in the middle (which was, of course the hole for the golf course) and then slowly drag it back across the top so it would act like a net and scoop any discs in its path off the top and into the hole. as it happened, though, the rope was much to heavy\u0026ndash;its own weight precluded it from being thrown 30 feet in the air and then some, in order to make it land on the other side.\nall told, it was an hour\u0026rsquo;s hard work with nothing to show for it. i shook my fists in silent defiance at the stolid cement-and-copper behemoth as we packed up our wonderful, useless, gear and walked away.\nstill, defeat is only temporary, i assure myself. reconnaissance is now the order of the day\u0026ndash;i must find a way to the top of one of the surrounding buildings to see if i can spy the exact location of the frisbees so i can plan the next attack accordingly. i know now that i will have to make good use of the element of surprise\u0026hellip;maybe a night parachute drop, or hiring a troupe of ninjas to form a human ladder to the top with lightning speed. anything else and i know the DiscMagnet™ will anticipate my every move.\nhere\u0026rsquo;s to imminent victory!\ndisc on spin: lift yr skinny fists like antennas to heaven | godspeed you black emperor!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/part-1-battle-lines-drawn/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethere are four objects. three of them are frisbees that belong to me. one stanford women\u0026rsquo;s ultimate, and two stanford men\u0026rsquo;s ultimate discs. discraft ultrastar 175g \u0026ndash; a beautifully overpriced and addicting piece of molded plastic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe fourth object is the Stanford DiscMagnet™, located in the engineering quad and better known as the 11th hole of the stanford disc golf course (or one of the courses). it has the mysterious property of attracting plastic discs ( \u003cem\u003emy\u003c/em\u003e discs in particular) in the same way as a physics class magnet attracts iron filings, and has ruthlessly stolen the three aforementioned discs from me while playing the 11th hole.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"part 1: battle lines drawn"},{"content":"not spiraling up or down | corkscrewing | planar | pose in front of the mirror | 2-dimensional moebius strip | mediocrity\u0026rsquo;s whore | banality at its finest | don\u0026rsquo;t ask for help | smiling vignettes of meaninglessness | incomprehensible failure | what is grace without repentance | nothing in excess | everything in moderation | even evil | the death of greatness | particulars destroy universals | diminished by will | faux-excellence in naivete | paradox of innocence | wisdom or knowledge | knowledge or carnality | love?innerspace:outerlimits | existence?hope:despair | post-existential apathy | vanity in the flesh | fitter | happier | more productive\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/fitter-happier/","summary":"\u003cp\u003enot spiraling up or down | corkscrewing | planar | pose in front of the mirror | 2-dimensional moebius strip | mediocrity\u0026rsquo;s whore | banality at its finest | don\u0026rsquo;t ask for help | smiling vignettes of meaninglessness | incomprehensible failure | what is grace without repentance | nothing in excess | everything in moderation | even evil | the death of greatness | particulars destroy universals | diminished by will | faux-excellence in naivete | paradox of innocence | wisdom or knowledge | knowledge or carnality | love?innerspace:outerlimits | existence?hope:despair | post-existential apathy | vanity in the flesh | fitter | happier | more productive\u003c/p\u003e","title":"fitter | happier"},{"content":"it is late but i\u0026rsquo;m happy. i just did something i\u0026rsquo;ve been meaning to do for a long time: play guitar in the middle of the quad at midnight.\ndan and dave evans and i had a legitimate 2-hour jam session\u0026hellip;rock, blues, jazz-funk \u0026ndash; we played it all, with the help of a few electric guitars and a very long extension cord.\nand, you won\u0026rsquo;t believe this, there was a ninja practicing his moves in the quad while we were rocking out. i tried to give him my guitar so he could wail on it, because everyone knows ninjas wail on guitars, but he obviously wasn\u0026rsquo;t a real ninja because he declined. but still he had some cool ninja moves.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/jam-oclock/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit is late but i\u0026rsquo;m happy. i just did something i\u0026rsquo;ve been meaning to do for a long time: play guitar in the middle of the quad at midnight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edan and dave evans and i had a legitimate 2-hour jam session\u0026hellip;rock, blues, jazz-funk \u0026ndash; we played it all, with the help of a few electric guitars and a very long extension cord.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand, you won\u0026rsquo;t believe this, there was a ninja practicing his moves in the quad while we were rocking out. i tried to give him my guitar so he could wail on it, because everyone knows ninjas wail on guitars, but he obviously wasn\u0026rsquo;t a \u003cem\u003ereal\u003c/em\u003e ninja because he declined. but still he had some cool ninja moves.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"jam o'clock"},{"content":"it occurred to me just now, as i was talking to god in halting and simplified spanish, that it was a remarkable metaphor for my life as a whole.\nit seems as if everything i do is confused and hesitant, a class of things that roll unfamiliarly from the tongue and awkwardly from clumsy hands. my actions show that i am still less than fluent in language, and i\u0026rsquo;ve realized what it is:\ni\u0026rsquo;m still not completely identified with that second skin my body wants to reject though it knows it is its only hope. i\u0026rsquo;m the ignorant fool who keeps drinking salt water, thinking it will quench his thirst.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/lost-in-translation/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit occurred to me just now, as i was talking to god in halting and simplified spanish, that it was a remarkable metaphor for my life as a whole.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eit seems as if everything i do is confused and hesitant, a class of things that roll unfamiliarly from the tongue and awkwardly from clumsy hands. my actions show that i am still less than fluent in language, and i\u0026rsquo;ve realized what it is:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"lost in translation"},{"content":"on friday, nick bott and i went to santa barbara in search of one trent wiesen. at the time, of course, we didn\u0026rsquo;t realize that our search would be futile. we were naive, overly sanguine\u0026ndash;as youths such as ourselves are wont to be.\ntrent, a friend of ours, had invited us to road trip down to his place (a 5 hour trip) for the weekend. the invitation happened some time ago (to our eventual frustration), but only on wednesday night did we decide to accept it; i rented a buick regal from enterprise and we planned our drive for late friday evening. friday evening came quickly, and nick and i made our preparations. sooner or later one of us realized that we needed to call trent and let him know we were coming down. i called his house 3 times that night, with nothing but the answering machine: \u0026ldquo;hello, you\u0026rsquo;ve reached the wiesens, please leave a message. beep\u0026rdquo;.\nstill, we thought, he had invited us for this weekend; he was just out of the house\u0026ndash;obviously not out of town or anything. so we figured we had better get a move on, and we\u0026rsquo;d continue to call while we drove. we pulled out of stanford at 10:30 or 11:00 pm, and started the long trek. it was a great night\u0026ndash;moonless, but the stars were out, and no one else was on the road. feeling the freedom of the long dark stretch ahead of me, i couldn\u0026rsquo;t restrain myself, and pushed the car over 100mph several times. sadly, it seemed that there was a governor of some sort in effect, because as i hit 110mph the engine would drop down.\nneedless to say, we made great time to santa barbara. the downside was that, while nick and i knew trent lived in or near santa barbara, we didn\u0026rsquo;t actually know where his house was. we had kept calling until the hour was no longer decent, but to no avail. thus it happened that at 4am saturday morning, we made the choice to give up on finding trent for the time being, and we directed our course southwest from downtown, where we hoped to find a beach. without too many wrong turns we eventually stumbled upon leadbetter park on the south coast of santa barbara, near the harbor. we pulled into the parking lot, exhausted from driving and singing loudly to CDs the whole way.\nit was worth the drive, however, to stumble out into the crisp, foggy, night air and feel cool sand beneath my feet, and to hear the susurrative crash of waves just outside my vision. that night we slept in the car, and woke up around 9 or 10 am.\nthe first order of business on saturday morning, after leaving leadbetter (and paying a parking fee\u0026ndash;they had kindly started charging us for parking at 7am), was to find out what the deal was with trent. no one answered at his home, still, so we called his aunt who lived in los altos. she gave us the address of his house in santa barbara, and we stopped at a gas station to look it up on a map. it turned out he lives 15 or 20 miles north of where we were, so we got in the car and made our way north to goleta. it was difficult to navigate the maze of residential streets based on the sketchy (and sometimes wrong) information from the map at the gas station. eventually, though, we found trent\u0026rsquo;s house. sitting outside, we called the place again, but no answer. they were definitely not home. we composed a short note and went to stick it to their door, asking them to call when trent got back.\nat the door, we noticed motion inside\u0026hellip;.was someone there after all? we knocked. the door cracked open an inch, then another inch, then a foot..suspicion\u0026hellip;the person behind the door was asian, possibly vietnamese, male, and looked to be about 22. nothing at all like trent or his family. nick and i were obviously confused, but as the man made no move to initiate conversation, we asked, \u0026ldquo;is trent there?\u0026rdquo;. in halting english came the counter-question: \u0026ldquo;are you the police?\u0026rdquo; nick and i looked at each other. \u0026ldquo;no, we are just looking for trent\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;re friends\u0026hellip;not police.\u0026rdquo; he opened the door a little wider and looked around. then he informed us that the wiesens were gone on a family vacation until the 13th.\nwe thanked the man and left, never finding out who he was, or what he was doing in the wiesen\u0026rsquo;s house.\nfor a moment we were disappointed, but then realized that the possibility for adventure had definitely increased. our minds began to imagine all the places we could go with a car and nothing better to do. some of the suggestions were the grand canyon, phoenix, las vegas, orange county, san diego, death valley, and a host of other tantalizing locations. we soon faced the hard truth, however, that many of these places would take 8 or 9 hours to drive\u0026hellip;.leaving us with a 12 or 13 hour drive back to stanford on sunday. coming back to reality, we decided to stay in santa barbara and hang out at the beach on saturday, and maybe go visit the wine country on sunday on our way back up.\nwe did hang out at the beach all saturday\u0026ndash;reading, sleeping, throwing the frisbee, and in general feeling that pleasant laziness that comes from the sun kissing with poisoned lips, sapping strength while exuding golden nectar. as it happened we got hungry around the same time we were going to start roasting, so we went in search of dinner. our search ended very abruptly upon sight of a fresh choice eating establishment on state street. we stuffed ourselves with all-you-can-eat salads, pastas, breads, soups, and pizzas. fat and happy, we lumbered across the street and caught the 7:20 showing of signs at the paseo nuevo theatres. a great movie with a lot to say for it, and it had wonderfully visceral tension without being grossly shocking. the characteristic darkly toned suspense i\u0026rsquo;ve come to expect from m. night shamalayan.\nafter the movie we were once again exhausted, so we parked our buick next to the same beach as the night before, and slept peacefully (if fitfully) in the cushy reclining front seats.\nsunday morning was more of the same\u0026ndash;inspiring devotionals on the beach just after sunrise, then more baking in the sun during the midday. i finally finished a book i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on for over a year: warranted christian belief -- the concluding book in the trilogy concerning the epistemological notion of warrant, by alvin plantinga. a must-read for any epistemologist with at least a few years of philosophical training.\nsunday afternoon found us on state highway 154, snaking northeast through beautiful mountainous desert interspersed with the occasional lush vineyard. just past solvang, the dutch experiment in california, we turned into the grounds of the bridlewood winery. we sat at a table looking over a small valley on which hills grew the lush varieties of grapes used to make exquisite wines. we talked about deeply important, philosophico-theological things, like the meaning of hope and the conundrum of coincidence. it didn\u0026rsquo;t surprise me anymore that nick would bringn these things up as topics of conversation \u0026ndash; his love for stretching his mind in contemplation of spiritual truths had been amply demonstrated to me time and time again. a refreshing quality.\nalso refreshing was our retreat from the sun into the cool, oak-lined hall where we tasted 5 of bridlewood\u0026rsquo;s best wines. nick and i voted unanimously that the 1999 chardonnay was possibly the best wine we\u0026rsquo;d ever tasted. and at half price, we couldn\u0026rsquo;t resist picking up a bottle.\nwith that, our adventure was officially over\u0026ndash;we got in our de facto motorhome and i braced myself for the long 5 hours of driving ahead of us. stopping once only, for gas and subway sandwiches, we made great time and passed many slow people on our way north. the highlight of the drive was at sunset\u0026ndash;flying at 90 mph with the long shadows of gigantic poplar trees on the left making dark furrows in the golden green of the farmland to our right, as dead ahead and to our sides we were ringed by mountains and hills that looked like gigantic sand dunes that god had raked his finger through, while we were listening to what can only be described as a paean of absolute beauty in the form of the final anthems of the gladiator soundtrack, and realizing with each charged strain, the transcendental lens of music, that sometimes heaven can\u0026rsquo;t help but bleed through to the earth.\nwe rolled into nick\u0026rsquo;s half moon bay beach house at 10pm, and relaxed in the hot tub after celebrating our safe return with a glass of the chardonnay. i spent the night there and drove home this morning, shirking work and all other responsibilities in order to go grocery shopping and take a much-needed shower.\nour search for trent was futile, but the trip was most definitely not.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/adventures-on-the-coast/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eon friday, nick bott and i went to santa barbara in search of one trent wiesen. at the time, of course, we didn\u0026rsquo;t realize that our search would be futile. we were naive, overly sanguine\u0026ndash;as youths such as ourselves are wont to be.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etrent, a friend of ours, had invited us to road trip down to his place (a 5 hour trip) for the weekend. the invitation happened some time ago (to our eventual frustration), but only on wednesday night did we decide to accept it; i rented a buick regal from enterprise and we planned our drive for late friday evening. friday evening came quickly, and nick and i made our preparations. sooner or later one of us realized that we needed to call trent and let him know we were coming down. i called his house 3 times that night, with nothing but the answering machine: \u0026ldquo;hello, you\u0026rsquo;ve reached the wiesens, please leave a message. \u003cem\u003ebeep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"adventures on the coast"},{"content":"welcome to my new home. sit down, listen to the minidisc player, and get knighted. or, search for deeper meaning\u0026hellip;.and leave a comment with your interpretation.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/cubism/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewelcome to my new home. sit down, listen to the minidisc player, and get knighted. or, search for deeper meaning\u0026hellip;.and leave a comment with your interpretation.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"cubism"},{"content":"altimar III was everything i\u0026rsquo;d hoped it would be, albeit in some unexpected ways. still, it was the best altimar yet, and certainly the smoothest to date.\nhere\u0026rsquo;s to altimar, guys, and i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see where we end up next year for altimar IV!\nep98-02:true\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/completely-rocked/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ealtimar III was everything i\u0026rsquo;d hoped it would be, albeit in some unexpected ways. still, it was the best altimar yet, and certainly the smoothest to date.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehere\u0026rsquo;s to altimar, guys, and i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see where we end up next year for altimar IV!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eep98-02:true\u003c/p\u003e","title":"...completely rocked"},{"content":"i am leaving today for orlando.\nand tomorrow it begins: ALTIMAR III. one of the best weekends of the year, if not the best.\nit will be nearly impossible to top altimar i and altimar ii, but trends like this can\u0026rsquo;t be stopped by mere impossibility.\ni wonder what is in store for us this time.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/08/altimar-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am leaving today for orlando.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand tomorrow it begins: ALTIMAR III. one of the best weekends of the year, if not the best.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eit will be nearly impossible to top altimar i and altimar ii, but trends like this can\u0026rsquo;t be stopped by mere impossibility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei wonder what is in store for us this time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"altimar 2002..."},{"content":"now, in more chronological order than not, search engine queries which found my blog (since june 2002\u0026ndash;multiple occurences noted in parentheses):\nIts on the tip of my tongue (4)\nhumorous naked bbq photos\nfrom the tip of my tongue\ntongue cleaning\n160a stanford\nJon Lipps\njonathan lipps stanford\njonathan lipps (2)\nsores tip of tongue (3)\nStanford CoHo summer hours\ndivx to vhs\nfake languages conlangs\nstanford blog\nmy spacecoaster\nhow to draw cool spaceships\nErin Spokes (3)\nbeing sick and have a few little sores on tongue\ni burn my tongue picture\nmedical problem i can\u0026rsquo;t taste sweet on my tongue\nhuman tongues list of tongue sores\nconversational spanish classes dallas\ntip of my tongue lyrics\ntongue\nhow long it takes to move into an apartment\nfirst things first: if you were the person searching the net for \u0026ldquo;humorous naked bbq photos\u0026rdquo;, please do not come back to this site. ever. likewise for the seeker of \u0026ldquo;i burn my tongue picture\u0026rdquo;.\nsecondly, i simply find it odd that (1) many of these searches actually happened [we are now using the internet to ask questions like, \u0026ldquo;how long does it take to move into an apartment\u0026rdquo;???? as long as it takes you to move your stuff, buddy!! come on], and (2) people who were serious and specific enough to look for \u0026ldquo;medical problem i can\u0026rsquo;t taste sweet on my tongue\u0026rdquo; strayed from their search and came to my page. which, and it were obvious, has nothing to do with that at all.\nthirdly, it\u0026rsquo;s a little bit dishearening that just as many people found my blog looking for my friend erin as found it looking for me. ah well.\nvirtual disc on spin: come away with me | norah jones\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/07/random-search-queries/","summary":"\u003cp\u003enow, in more chronological order than not, \u003cstrong\u003esearch engine queries which found my blog\u003c/strong\u003e (since june 2002\u0026ndash;multiple occurences noted in parentheses):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIts on the tip of my tongue (4)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehumorous naked bbq photos\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003efrom the tip of my tongue\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etongue cleaning\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e160a stanford\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJon Lipps\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ejonathan lipps stanford\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ejonathan lipps (2)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esores tip of tongue (3)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStanford CoHo summer hours\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edivx to vhs\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003efake languages conlangs\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003estanford blog\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003emy spacecoaster\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehow to draw cool spaceships\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eErin Spokes (3)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ebeing sick and have a few little sores on tongue\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei burn my tongue picture\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003emedical problem i can\u0026rsquo;t taste sweet on my tongue\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehuman tongues list of tongue sores\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003econversational spanish classes dallas\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etip of my tongue lyrics\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etongue\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehow long it takes to move into an apartment\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"random search queries"},{"content":"i am now officially back from my blog-vacation. not that i ever intended to take one in the first place, but this is what happened: in short, my life became a very interesting mix of the insanely boring and the insanely busy. now, in normal times and under normal conditions, i would only experience one of these extremes at a time; the rest of the day or week or month would be smoothed out by a moderate balance. not so these last two weeks\u0026ndash;i have been riding the pendulum daily in a rollercoaster-like arc.\nso, you, my faithful blog readers (of which i\u0026rsquo;m sure there are now none) have been left out of both the inane and the exciting. better this way, in my opinion, than just receiving the inane.\nin any case my observation over the past two weeks is this: life without a blog is the same. i did no better or worse in any area of my being, and no observable changes ensued during the unintentional blog fast.\nmostly, this made me breathe a sigh of relief, as i can now safely put to death the false accusations of blog-haters (secretly blog-enviers, no doubt) everywhere and their silly arguments as to the addictive and/or harmful and/or useless nature of the blog.\nunfortunately, i have neither read anyone\u0026rsquo;s blog for the past few weeks, and so i don\u0026rsquo;t know what\u0026rsquo;s going on in the lives of many of my friends. sooner or later i will catch up, i promise.\nlistening to: the sound of my brother sleeping\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/07/contrition/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am now officially back from my blog-vacation. not that i ever intended to take one in the first place, but this is what happened: in short, my life became a very interesting mix of the insanely boring and the insanely busy. now, in normal times and under normal conditions, i would only experience one of these extremes at a time; the rest of the day or week or month would be smoothed out by a moderate balance. not so these last two weeks\u0026ndash;i have been riding the pendulum daily in a rollercoaster-like arc.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"contrition"},{"content":"so. bored. and. lazy.\nsomebody rescue me, it\u0026rsquo;s friday night.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/07/wheres-a-date-when-you-need-one/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eso. bored. and. lazy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esomebody rescue me, it\u0026rsquo;s friday night.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"where's a date when you need one?"},{"content":"i am randomly heading to orange county this weekend (i.e., now). california, this time. see you there.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/07/the-4th/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei am randomly heading to orange county this weekend (i.e., now). california, this time. see you there.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the 4th"},{"content":"last week i worked 50 hours. not much time left over for thought. but i did learn something. a very sad and sobering something. it is this:\nin my life i have yet to experience the power of true action.\ni realized that what i have been experiencing is passion, in the philosophical sense: being acted upon.\nin other words, i have felt the power of emotion, felt the power of joy and sorrow and the fantastic intermingling thereof with nostalgia, etc\u0026hellip;\nand yet, when emotions die, as they do moments after their inspirations, they leave nothing, save perchance a fading resolve that crumbles under the weight of its duty.\nreal change, real progress of character must come instead from decision, from action. emotions can ignite but it is the will that must drive\u0026ndash;however the will will, be it on its own power or only by grace [i certainly know into which category falls mine].\nbut, i think, it is exactly this sustained force of willful avowedness which i do not posess. and so i have yet to discover the possibilities of growth which may be unlocked by that key.\ni am young frodo, and my passions are the shire: i\u0026rsquo;m still in love with little brooks and streams to paddle down, soft meadows and pleasant hazy evenings. in my heart i am not yet old enough to perceive the majesty of the misty mountains, the whispering magic of lothlorien, the echoing stillness of moria, or the piercing white silver of ecthelion. i am not old enough to desire more than my little comfortable corner of personhood; not old enough to realize that sooner or later i had better be off Questing, or my little world could abrubtly\u0026hellip;end\u0026hellip;\nso i stay, and paddle down the streams, and lie in the meadows on sunny afternoons. an easy life, replete with occasional, exciting bouts of emotional energy, but nothing so serious as to be\u0026hellip; difficult. an easy life\u0026hellip;\nbut there are times, like now, when i glance at the road beneath my feet and something deep inside stirs\u0026hellip;an ancient dragon halfway waking from sleep, one eye open\u0026hellip;there are times when the road seems more like a stream, flowing faster and faster into other streams, all leading somewhere\u0026ndash;and those times i want to follow the soft suggestion of the road, no less urgent for being whispered, to go.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/07/the-road-goes-ever-on-and-on/","summary":"\u003cp\u003elast week i worked 50 hours. not much time left over for thought. but i did learn something. a very sad and sobering something. it is this:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ein my life i have yet to experience the power of true action\u003c/strong\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei realized that what i have been experiencing is \u003cem\u003epassion\u003c/em\u003e, in the philosophical sense: being acted \u003cem\u003eupon\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein other words, i have felt the power of emotion, felt the power of joy and sorrow and the fantastic intermingling thereof with nostalgia, etc\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the road goes ever on and on"},{"content":"july enters. now come the heavy dog days. to complement the blog dog days.\nfor some reason that makes me think of logalogalogalogalog and efrafa, hlessil-rah and salamandastron. weird.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/blog-dogs/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ejuly enters. now come the heavy dog days. to complement the blog dog days.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003efor some reason that makes me think of logalogalogalogalog and efrafa, hlessil-rah and salamandastron. weird.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"blog dogs"},{"content":"well, it\u0026rsquo;s been quite a while hasn\u0026rsquo;t it.\nfinals week came and went, without much in the way of commendation. i fared decently in terms of grades\u0026ndash;not too great, but not failing. but god damn mediocrity (that\u0026rsquo;s a sincere request, not profanity). you know, i really want to be excellent in my academic life, but i just can\u0026rsquo;t seem to bring myself to get there anymore. i suspect some deeply rooted problem which if i\u0026rsquo;m smart i\u0026rsquo;ll get sorted out, with god\u0026rsquo;s help, before september.\nthe weekend after, i moved into my apartment in the basement of kingscote. it\u0026rsquo;s a dark, musky, ratty sort of place with one small room, one small kitchen, one small closet, and a bathroom down the hall (which i share with an invisible man named bob).\neveryone else was at graduation, so i rented a car for the week, to help move things, and to take myself to the airport the coming thursday. anyway on sunday i moved all my belongings, virtually alone [jon parr and shannon helped for a few minutes here and there, thanks guys], and exhausted myself after 13 hours of carrying stuff and shopping for food and necessities.\nthe next morning i started my job, which is creating and managing three websites for the stanford in vivo medical laboratory (or something like that). unfortunately, my boss seemed to have left on a three-week trip, so i was left to do whatever i would in the way of getting things going. that being the case, i worked half days monday through thursday.\ni\u0026rsquo;ll pat myself on the back, here: i\u0026rsquo;ve been eating pretty well. i\u0026rsquo;ve used the stovetop to cook about 80% of my meals, and they\u0026rsquo;ve all been more or less well-balanced. i like cooking, and i\u0026rsquo;m already feeling like buying some more arcane sorts of things (a griddle, for instance) so that i can experiment with extremely difficult recipes (for example, a decent chicken and pasta entree). [i realize that one doesn\u0026rsquo;t cook that sort of dish on a griddle, it was just to give an idea]\non thursday at noon i drove to the airport and flew to orlando for a weekend at home. you see, alister mcgrath and graham tomlin, of wycliffe hall oxford, were coming to orlando to discuss some things with CNL about plans for new facilities at oxford. moreover, they were going to be involved in some planning meetings with wycliffe execs [to make things more confusing, \u0026lsquo;wycliffe execs\u0026rsquo; refers to leaders, not of wycliffe hall, but of wycliffe bible translators, based in orlando], etc\u0026hellip; so, wycliffe hall is a college of oxford which focus is theology and christian studies. my dad (a wycliffe exec) and i thought it would be advantageous for me to meet these gentlemen (being rather important scholars, christian or otherwise) in the event that at some point i want to go to oxford to pursue a d.phil or what have you. the weekend went well\u0026ndash;i attended various meetings and other functions, and met a lot of orlando business leaders as well as the oxford duo. \u0026ldquo;networking\u0026rdquo;, some people would say. i\u0026rsquo;m not much of a networking person but it was good.\nneedless to say, it was also great to see my family.\nand now i\u0026rsquo;m back. and done with a 9-hour work day. the first in my life? maybe\u0026hellip; the last? no.\nnot to mention, [cf. my last post] i feel like i\u0026rsquo;ve just been told the last spoken line in the matrix.\nvirtual disc on spin: false cathedrals | elliott\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/welcome-to-summer-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewell, it\u0026rsquo;s been quite a while hasn\u0026rsquo;t it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003efinals week came and went, without much in the way of commendation. i fared decently in terms of grades\u0026ndash;not too great, but not failing. but god damn mediocrity (that\u0026rsquo;s a sincere request, not profanity). you know, i really \u003cem\u003ewant\u003c/em\u003e to be excellent in my academic life, but i just can\u0026rsquo;t seem to bring myself to get there anymore. i suspect some deeply rooted problem which if i\u0026rsquo;m smart i\u0026rsquo;ll get sorted out, with god\u0026rsquo;s help, before september.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"welcome to summer 2002"},{"content":"i claim, nothing embodies mediocrity more than sin. you might respond, but nothing embodies evil more than sin, for isn\u0026rsquo;t that just what is coequal with it? and i say, then nothing embodies mediocrity more than evil. isn\u0026rsquo;t that obviously true? we all commit evil, but there are few to none who can rise above it. there is nothing heroic about evil [i say to myself: and haven\u0026rsquo;t i always wanted to be a hero?]. it is not difficult to be evil. evil is a failure. case study: it is not the genius of the archvillian which is evil; if it were, my point would be refuted. no, the genius, the strength, they are good\u0026ndash;it is the archvillian himself who is evil, and if evil he is, it is only out of a failure to be good.\ntherefore sin is mud in water, a smudge on the canvas. it threatens to blur the sharp lines of reality. it takes beauty and stifles it\u0026ndash;no, instead it dulls our senses of beauty and truth (it can never actually harm them). it is self-replicating and narcissistic. the only paradox is that it does not self-annihilate. or maybe, it does, in a vacuum\u0026ndash;it requires hosts to thrive. weak hosts\u0026ndash;but not too weak, or it won\u0026rsquo;t last long. whatever the case, it never lasts forever. either the parasite or the host die. if the host waits too long, they both die, passing from existence with the mingling strains of the shrill laugh of victory and the echoed whisper of powerless regret.\nif only regret weren\u0026rsquo;t powerless. it\u0026rsquo;s such a great injustice that that which most naturally motivates us not to sin always occurs after the error we should not have made.\ni suppose that\u0026rsquo;s what was wrong with nature.\nromans 8:20-21.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/sigh-of-sickness/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei claim, nothing embodies mediocrity more than sin. you might respond, but nothing embodies \u003cem\u003eevil\u003c/em\u003e more than sin, for isn\u0026rsquo;t that just what is coequal with it? and i say, then nothing embodies mediocrity more than evil. isn\u0026rsquo;t that obviously true? we all commit evil, but there are few to none who can rise above it. there is nothing heroic about evil [i say to myself: and haven\u0026rsquo;t i always wanted to be a hero?]. it is not \u003cem\u003edifficult\u003c/em\u003e to be evil. evil is a failure. case study: it is not the genius of the archvillian which is evil; if it were, my point would be refuted. no, the genius, the strength, they are good\u0026ndash;it is the archvillian himself who is evil, and if evil he is, it is only out of a failure to be good.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sigh of sickness"},{"content":"no time for reading\nneither for writing a blog\nthere is work to do\nhow\u0026rsquo;s that? a little haiku for you all. haikus make me think of lush chinese rainforests. are there rainforests in china? i don\u0026rsquo;t know.\nmoving and organizing takes a lot of time. buying crap takes a lot of time. working less than 8 hours a day takes a lot of time.\ngoodbye to my dreams of lazy summer evenings spent reading good books!\ni will be in orlando this weekend, for meetings. see you there.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/blogku/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eno time for reading\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eneither for writing a blog\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethere is work to do\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehow\u0026rsquo;s that? a little haiku for you all. haikus make me think of lush chinese rainforests. are there rainforests in china? i don\u0026rsquo;t know.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003emoving and organizing takes a lot of time. buying crap takes a lot of time. working less than 8 hours a day takes a lot of time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003egoodbye to my dreams of lazy summer evenings spent reading good books!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"blogku!"},{"content":"[computer wakes up in kingscote]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/hello-computer/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e[computer wakes up in kingscote]\u003c/p\u003e","title":"hello computer"},{"content":"[computer leaves soto]\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/goodbye-computer/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e[computer leaves soto]\u003c/p\u003e","title":"goodbye computer"},{"content":"my room is strangely empty without a roommate. now it is just me and david bazan, et al.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/my-favorite-cloud-of-witnesses/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emy room is strangely empty without a roommate. now it is just me and david bazan, et al.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"my favorite cloud of witnesses"},{"content":"the great battle in the world [and my soul] these days is between joy and cynicism. the face of evil i see is not hate, anger, or death: it is passive, sarcastic, and useless, with lips twisted in a knowing sneer.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/banality/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe great battle in the world [and my soul] these days is between joy and cynicism. the face of evil i see is not hate, anger, or death: it is passive, sarcastic, and useless, with lips twisted in a knowing sneer.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"banality"},{"content":"the blogger template updater is not saving my changes. i guess no webpage updates for a while.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/grr/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe blogger template updater is not saving my changes. i guess no webpage updates for a while.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"grr"},{"content":"summer fell upon me like an unexpected kiss. mmmm, it\u0026rsquo;s good to be done.\non friday morning, i woke up at 8:20, rolled out of bed and on to my bike (it was waiting beneath my bed like a trusty steed). i was seated in the room for my philosophy 102 examination by 8:30. at roughly 8:50am, i left the room after stamping my seal on the completed exam. i was sound asleep by 9:05.\nwhen i woke up again, i was too busy wondering whether i\u0026rsquo;d missed lunch to realize that, oh most glorious of days, my sophomore year was over.\nwell, not competely: there is the small matter of reading 5 different selections of ancient greek from various texts by wednesday, but that\u0026rsquo;s so far in the future i can revel in the summerness of summer for as long as i want. and, it\u0026rsquo;s just reading.\nso i celebrated. i went to a cornerstone party-like-event at the oval, and also to jenna shuer\u0026rsquo;s birthday party. i kicked back and hung out, having nothing else to do. finally dan and i celebrated by beating return to castle wolfenstein, the end of which was great\u0026ndash;i had to defeat a resurrected, immortal [wait\u0026ndash;if he was resurrected, he was dead..so he couldn\u0026rsquo;t have been immortal. ah, don\u0026rsquo;t think too much], undead, battle lord named Heinrich I. how cool is that.\nnow i\u0026rsquo;m back from climbing at the wall for an hour, sitting in my room amidst the usual mess, compounded by the various boxes sitting on the floor waiting to be filled. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to move into my apartment for the summer. only one complication: i have to vacate my current room by 10am on thursday morning, and more than likely i won\u0026rsquo;t be able to move into kingscote until friday. a dilemma, then.\ngoodbye plato, descartes, locke, kant, hume, wittgenstein, and gettier. hello dreamweaver, flash, asp, perl, javascript, html, and c++. from one world of abstraction to another. perfect. i think i\u0026rsquo;m going to love my job.\nsong on spin: \u0026ldquo;drive on to me\u0026rdquo; | elliott\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/the-summerness-of-summer/","summary":"\u003cp\u003esummer fell upon me like an unexpected kiss. mmmm, it\u0026rsquo;s good to be done.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eon friday morning, i woke up at 8:20, rolled out of bed and on to my bike (it was waiting beneath my bed like a trusty steed). i was seated in the room for my philosophy 102 examination by 8:30. at roughly 8:50am, i left the room after stamping my seal on the completed exam. i was sound asleep by 9:05.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the summerness of summer"},{"content":"the all-nighter went well. i got my paper and my spanish presentation done, and both of them turned out acceptably, i hope.\nunfortunately i wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to sleep at all on wednesday, because after class i worked on finishing up my new song so i could play it at the coho. i also learned pedro\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;options\u0026rdquo; to cover.\nthe show itself didn\u0026rsquo;t go that well\u0026hellip;i felt\u0026hellip;tired. and it came out in the first 2 or 3 songs. i scrapped \u0026ldquo;options\u0026rdquo; after i sucked on the first few lines. plus we were running sound out of another guy\u0026rsquo;s system, which was very big and so it made me a little nervous. there were quite a few people there too. oh well. it made me resolve to actually practice my songs, because they are rather hard for me to play sometimes and i need to have them down before i do shows. i forget my lyrics a lot too. ah well, it was fun. i ran sound for mikey\u0026rsquo;s band \u0026lsquo;midget mosaic\u0026rsquo;. they played a 1.5hr set, so i was really tired by the end. they had me come up on one of their last songs and play lead guitar, and that was cool of them; they\u0026rsquo;re neat guys.\nand now i\u0026rsquo;m at work for the last time this year, possibly ever (if i don\u0026rsquo;t have this job next fall). it was a good quarter. but i forgot to study for my final tomorrow, and i need to do that.\nminidisc on spin: live show | midget mosaic\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/need-sleepy/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe all-nighter went well. i got my paper and my spanish presentation done, and both of them turned out acceptably, i hope.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eunfortunately i wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to sleep at all on wednesday, because after class i worked on finishing up my new song so i could play it at the coho. i also learned pedro\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;options\u0026rdquo; to cover.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe show itself didn\u0026rsquo;t go that well\u0026hellip;i felt\u0026hellip;tired. and it came out in the first 2 or 3 songs. i scrapped \u0026ldquo;options\u0026rdquo; after i sucked on the first few lines. plus we were running sound out of another guy\u0026rsquo;s system, which was very big and so it made me a little nervous. there were quite a few people there too. oh well. it made me resolve to actually practice my songs, because they are rather hard for me to play sometimes and i need to have them down before i do shows. i forget my lyrics a lot too. ah well, it was fun. i ran sound for mikey\u0026rsquo;s band \u0026lsquo;midget mosaic\u0026rsquo;. they played a 1.5hr set, so i was really tired by the end. they had me come up on one of their last songs and play lead guitar, and that was cool of them; they\u0026rsquo;re neat guys.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"need sleepy"},{"content":"right now it\u0026rsquo;s 2am, and i\u0026rsquo;m in the tresidder lair for the first time. why?\nthe story: for weeks, now, no\u0026ndash;months, even\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ve known that i had a 10 page paper due tomorrow [today], june 5th. and yet, miraculously, i avoided even thinking about it until roughly 6 hours ago. at that point, i thought long and hard about which topic i might want to do, and then decided to play return to castle wolfenstein, a new, wonderful, computer game where you run around and shoot nazis, cyborg monsters, and even the undead. fun, strategy, and carnage, for a few hours. eventually i picked the topic with the least number of letters in the prompt, and started working. pretty soon i had my introductory paragraph, so i played some more computer games. i realized immediately, that at that rate, there were not enough hours left in which to finish the paper before it was due. ah well\u0026ndash;i keep wanting adventure, and now i\u0026rsquo;ve got it. so here i am\u0026ndash;pulling my first (second? third?) all-nighter of the quarter.\ni\u0026rsquo;ll just shoot some recent news out there in rapid-fire mode:\ni got the summer job i applied for at a medical reserach laboratory at the stanford hospital. i\u0026rsquo;ll be doing web design and possibly other programming projects. so i\u0026rsquo;ll be staying in kingscote until september, when i go to portugal and home for a month.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve got a show tomorrow night [tonight] (june 5) at 9:30pm at the coho! please come! hopefully i will be awake then, though it\u0026rsquo;s looking grim.\ni went climbing on sunday at castle rock with dan, and it was tons of fun, though i was really week from not having done anything for a while\ntrip to dallas this weekend was cancelled for lack of a cheap plane ticket, and because now there\u0026rsquo;s a lot of things here i need to take care of in order to get the summer rolling\ni finally sold my computer [again], bought a new, much-improved minidisc player and sold my old player. i love su.market\nbeen doing some ASP coding recently, and i have some plans for the blog, muhahah\noh yeah, i have a spanish presentation due tomorrow, crap.\ni work best under pressure. bring it on.\nminidisc on spin: control | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/06/bring-it-on/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eright now it\u0026rsquo;s 2am, and i\u0026rsquo;m in the tresidder lair for the first time. why?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe story: for weeks, now, no\u0026ndash;months, even\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ve known that i had a 10 page paper due tomorrow [today], june 5th. and yet, miraculously, i avoided even \u003cem\u003ethinking\u003c/em\u003e about it until roughly 6 hours ago. at that point, i thought long and hard about which topic i might want to do, and then decided to play \u003cem\u003ereturn to castle wolfenstein\u003c/em\u003e, a new, wonderful, computer game where you run around and shoot nazis, cyborg monsters, and even the undead. fun, strategy, and carnage, for a few hours. eventually i picked the topic with the least number of letters in the prompt, and started working. pretty soon i had my introductory paragraph, so i played some more computer games. i realized immediately, that at that rate, there were not enough hours left in which to finish the paper before it was due. ah well\u0026ndash;i keep wanting adventure, and now i\u0026rsquo;ve got it. so here i am\u0026ndash;pulling my first (second? third?) all-nighter of the quarter.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"bring it on"},{"content":"my earlier thoughts notwithstanding, today was a beautiful day. you might recall earlier that my draw group got a 1320 for next year\u0026rsquo;s housing draw. well, miraculously, we got into our first choice\u0026ndash;suites. and the miracles don\u0026rsquo;t stop there\u0026ndash;at in-house draw tonight we pulled Griffin 302\u0026ndash;a sweet corner room overlooking the golf course, the volleyball courts, and lake lag. we checked out the room after the draw and talked to the guys who are living there this year. they were quite friendly, as well as quite high, but we got out of them that their draw number last year was around 400. and we snagged their room at almost 1000 higher.\ndan and i agree that this calls for a celebratory cigar.\njust think\u0026ndash;no more dining halls and coed bathrooms. and, somebody wake me up, open kitchen!!!!.\nneedless to say, tonight has gone a long way towards fixing problem #4.\nvirtual disc on spin: musicforthemorningafter | pete yorn\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/griffin-302-here-we-come/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emy earlier thoughts notwithstanding, today was a beautiful day. you might recall earlier that my draw group got a 1320 for next year\u0026rsquo;s housing draw. well, miraculously, we got into our first choice\u0026ndash;suites. and the miracles don\u0026rsquo;t stop there\u0026ndash;at in-house draw tonight we pulled Griffin 302\u0026ndash;a sweet corner room overlooking the golf course, the volleyball courts, and lake lag. we checked out the room after the draw and talked to the guys who are living there this year. they were quite friendly, as well as quite high, but we got out of them that their draw number last year was around \u003cem\u003e400\u003c/em\u003e. and we snagged their room at almost \u003cem\u003e1000\u003c/em\u003e higher.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"griffin 302 here we come"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking recently about all the things that are wrong with me. well, that\u0026rsquo;s not precisely true\u0026ndash;i couldn\u0026rsquo;t possibly think about all of them at once. so i\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about a number of them.\nand the more i think about them, the more they really piss me off. some of them are simply dumb habits that elude breaking. some of them are so petty i\u0026rsquo;m glad i hide them behind my veneer of cynicism. or do i? i\u0026rsquo;m sure they show through to those people who are discerning about such things.\nso now, without further ado, My Problems [the short list, in no particular order]:\nlaziness. where does the time go? half of it i don\u0026rsquo;t even remember what i did in the last hour, except for the fact that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t productive. if i weren\u0026rsquo;t in the midst of the easiest quarter i\u0026rsquo;ll ever have, i would be screwed. and i will be if i don\u0026rsquo;t realize that sitting in front of my computer looking at my desktop picture is dangerously close to omega level.\ncynicism. somewhere in the last year i decided that i never wanted to be disappointed again. so i lowered my expectations of myself, god, and the world. the [utterly unfounded] fear of god failing me, especially, sent me down that dark road.\nsarcasm. not to be confused with cynicism, this isn\u0026rsquo;t so much about worldview as it is about relationships. i hurt people with my unthinking sarcasm, and that sucks.\nlack of faith. if i look at my actions, instead of what i tell myself, it becomes apparent that i don\u0026rsquo;t really believe that god has things under control, or that he really is good and wants the best for me.\narrogance. i look down on other people for the stupidest reasons.\ninsecurity. strange that it exists in such an equal proportion to arrogance\u0026hellip; i\u0026rsquo;m always afraid that people don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;m cool, or that i really don\u0026rsquo;t belong at stanford, or in the philosophy program. and instead of just pushing these fears away i let them lead me to others, like fears that [god forbid] i don\u0026rsquo;t know what i\u0026rsquo;m doing in life, and that i\u0026rsquo;m not doing anything important.\ndeconstructionism. cynicism, lack of faith, my major, and stanford in general have given me the crappiest deconstructionist attitude about everything. i always have to make some smart comment that\u0026rsquo;s purely argumentative. because this is what is popular.\nthen there\u0026rsquo;s those other things which i won\u0026rsquo;t mention. a little bit deadly, that\u0026rsquo;s all.\nat this point someone would probably say that i\u0026rsquo;m being negatively one-sided. after all, what good is a laundry list of sins and faults? isn\u0026rsquo;t that what jesus came to abolish? yes, of course. and self-deprecation is too obviously trendy.\nstill, i can\u0026rsquo;t help but sigh longingly in anticipation of a time when above problems will no longer belong to me. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to get my head up out of this cesspool. and, i don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s wrong to try to get there as soon as possible: my destination is the stars, and my legs can\u0026rsquo;t jump that far, but that doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean i shouldn\u0026rsquo;t exercise in preparation for the day when they can.\nalso, believe it or not, many of these problems only recently came to my attention. and what better way to deal with them than to shove them into the glaring light and the clean air, away from the dark, mucky corners of my heart where they thrive?\ndisc on spin: oh, inverted world | the shins\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/95-theses-ie-ways-i-suck/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking recently about all the things that are wrong with me. well, that\u0026rsquo;s not precisely true\u0026ndash;i couldn\u0026rsquo;t possibly think about \u003cem\u003eall\u003c/em\u003e of them at once. so i\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about a number of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand the more i think about them, the more they really piss me off. some of them are simply dumb habits that elude breaking. some of them are so petty i\u0026rsquo;m glad i hide them behind my veneer of cynicism. or do i? i\u0026rsquo;m sure they show through to those people who are discerning about such things.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"95 theses (i.e. ways i suck)"},{"content":"i think it\u0026rsquo;s definitely wrong that i would consider reading other peoples\u0026rsquo; blogs of higher priority than doing any of my cascade of makeup work.\nin other news, come to my show a week from today!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/alpha-levels-not-check/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei think it\u0026rsquo;s definitely wrong that i would consider reading other peoples\u0026rsquo; blogs of higher priority than doing any of my cascade of makeup work.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein other news, come to my show a week from today!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"alpha levels: not check!"},{"content":"going to florida for 5 days a week and a half before finals was not a good idea. i don\u0026rsquo;t think i could be any less motivated to finish strongly. luckily for me, i\u0026rsquo;m having the easiest quarter of my stanford career, and maybe that will let me slide by without too much trouble.\norlando was sweet. i got in thursday morning at 6am. i was a little tired but i didn\u0026rsquo;t want to go to bed until that night or the jet lag would suck all weekend, so i went running. i hung out with chris nyffeler for a good bit, because he left friday morning for japan.\nanyway there\u0026rsquo;s no use in just logging my days. here were some of the highlights: my brother\u0026rsquo;s graduation, hanging out with friends every day, seeing family, going rock climbing, and going to a my spacecoaster concert. the concert rocked so hard\u0026ndash;it was a tiny little club, and probably no more than 15 or 20 people came to the show. so i was right up there with the band rocking out and screaming with john lamonica. a bunch of my friends came to the show with us, and we all hung out with the band beforehand. they\u0026rsquo;re thinking of coming to san francisco to play a show or two, and i hope they do.\ni\u0026rsquo;m still waiting to hear on a job i applied for a week ago. it\u0026rsquo;s a web design job for a medical lab at stanford. i think the news on the job will be the deciding factor of whether i stay in california over the summer or not. surprisingly, i\u0026rsquo;m entirely ambivalent. being home made me realize what i would be missing out on if i never went back to florida over the summer. balance this with the cool prospect of living on my own in an apartment in california, and you can see why i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t care either way.\ni\u0026rsquo;m at work now, so i should probably procrastinate by doing something more productive, like reading some of the 250 pages of kant i have left. if you\u0026rsquo;ve never read kant\u0026hellip;.well, pity me anyway.\ndisc on spin: music for the morning after | pete yorn\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/my-spacecoaster-rocks-kants-behind/","summary":"\u003cp\u003egoing to florida for 5 days a week and a half before finals was not a good idea. i don\u0026rsquo;t think i could be any less motivated to finish strongly. luckily for me, i\u0026rsquo;m having the easiest quarter of my stanford career, and maybe that will let me slide by without too much trouble.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eorlando was sweet. i got in thursday morning at 6am. i was a little tired but i didn\u0026rsquo;t want to go to bed until that night or the jet lag would suck all weekend, so i went running. i hung out with chris nyffeler for a good bit, because he left friday morning for japan.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"my spacecoaster rocks kant's behind"},{"content":"the pedro show was completely awesome. david bazan. what a beautiful, broken man.\ni\u0026rsquo;m leaving for home in a few hours. my brother is graduating high school. i\u0026rsquo;m there through memorial day, and it will be a good break from school.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/awesomeness-masquerading-as-humility/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe pedro show was completely awesome. david bazan. what a beautiful, broken man.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m leaving for home in a few hours. my brother is graduating high school. i\u0026rsquo;m there through memorial day, and it will be a good break from school.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"awesomeness masquerading as humility"},{"content":"i had a wonderful night. my crusade bible study had a date night, and each of us found an extremely beautiful and enchanting lady to spend the evening with (i had the honor of taking the lovely erin spokes). we went to dinner and ice skating. i ice-skated once before in my life, in the galleria in dallas, when i wasn\u0026rsquo;t any older than 10. so it was great fun, and i think give me a few more times out and i\u0026rsquo;ll be doing quadruple axels and whatever else.\nuntil later, this is uncle caveman, signing off.\nsong on spin: \u0026ldquo;you\u0026rdquo; | switchfoot\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/date-night/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei had a wonderful night. my crusade bible study had a date night, and each of us found an extremely beautiful and enchanting lady to spend the evening with (i had the honor of taking the lovely erin spokes). we went to dinner and ice skating. i ice-skated once before in my life, in the galleria in dallas, when i wasn\u0026rsquo;t any older than 10. so it was great fun, and i think give me a few more times out and i\u0026rsquo;ll be doing quadruple axels and whatever else.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"date night"},{"content":"my goodness. i just heard thunder outside. do you understand what this means? it\u0026rsquo;s the first time i\u0026rsquo;ve heard thunder at this school since\u0026hellip;september. glorious!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/miracle/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emy goodness. i just heard thunder outside. do you \u003cem\u003eunderstand\u003c/em\u003e what this means? it\u0026rsquo;s the first time i\u0026rsquo;ve heard thunder at this school since\u0026hellip;september. glorious!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"miracle"},{"content":"also, just so you know, it is still ok to leave comments. i\u0026rsquo;m getting lonely.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/a-cry-for-love/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ealso, just so you know, it is still ok to leave comments. i\u0026rsquo;m getting lonely.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"a cry for love"},{"content":"it might be sad, but the bookends of my last few days were movies: on the one hand, star wars episode 2, and on the other, a significantly lower-quality movie called orange county.\ni saw the new star wars movie at 12:01am wednesday night\u0026ndash;the first showing on the west coast. it was at one of those mega-plex 45-theatre compound things, so the lines were amazing. one of our group had been there since 2pm, however, braving the crowds, so we walked right to the front of the line at 10:15pm, carrying in \u0026rsquo;n out burgers for our diehard compatriots. it was an event\u0026ndash;a lot of dressed up people as you\u0026rsquo;d expect, and we were even interviewed the stanford daily newspaper, and made it in two days later (our whole ancient greek class was there, so it was a novelty).\ni really liked the movie. with star wars i am very willing to lay down any high-minded notion of filmmaking and just sit in childlike awe of pretty colors, flashy scenes, and cool spaceships. so it was a bonus for me that episode 2 was so much better than that\u0026ndash;a deepening, brooding, and more mysterious plot beginning to surface, a cheesy yet honest and sincere love story, sweet battle scenes, and of course yoda kicking ass. i was also happy of the knowledge that ep2 added to the \u0026rsquo;expanded universe'.\ni went and saw it again thursday night, because one of my friends who had a ticket couldn\u0026rsquo;t go and he gave it to me for free.\nfriday i skipped all my classes because i was sick and couldn\u0026rsquo;t talk more than a whisper (something to do with my throat i guess). i read berkeley\u0026rsquo;s principles of human something-or-other. a good read, but sleepy after 20 pages. dan left friday for yosemite, to go climbing all weekend, so i had the room to myself. i played computer games, did homework, and watched half of blackhawk down.\nsaturday i did something new\u0026ndash;i woke up early (11:45am) and went to the IM fields to play softball for our crusade softball team. i\u0026rsquo;d never played before, but it was quite fun. i actually batted 1000 and scored a number of runs. if you\u0026rsquo;d asked me before, i would have sworn i hated the game. but i guess that\u0026rsquo;s what happens when i judge something before i experience it. that night a bunch of people went into the city to watch our friend serena play her first live gig in the city, at a cafe/art gallery. it was a neat place, cool atmosphere, and she did a great job. then everyone dragged me (and some other guys) to a swing club, where we capped the night looking like fools on a waxed wood floor amidst a bunch of hardcore swingers.\ntoday it rained, and i felt like it looked outside\u0026ndash;grey and monotone. i can\u0026rsquo;t even remember what i did after church. i went and saw orange county at flicks\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s a movie about a kid from o.c. who wants to get into stanford but doesn\u0026rsquo;t, because of his retarded college counselor\u0026rsquo;s mix-up, and he goes to stanford to try to get in. it was funny because nothing was ever filmed at stanford. so all the scenes at \u0026ldquo;stanford\u0026rdquo; were shot at night at some other college, which looked very little like stanford. i wonder how many people will end up thinking that actually was stanford. the story itself was not too bad, and it was humorous at times. but not really worth noting, all told.\ni\u0026rsquo;m going home on wednesday for memorial weekend. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see my friends and family.\nvirtual disc on spin: my spacecoaster | my spacecoaster\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/life-happens-between-movies/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit might be sad, but the bookends of my last few days were movies: on the one hand, star wars episode 2, and on the other, a significantly lower-quality movie called orange county.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei saw the new star wars movie at 12:01am wednesday night\u0026ndash;the first showing on the west coast. it was at one of those mega-plex 45-theatre compound things, so the lines were amazing. one of our group had been there since 2pm, however, braving the crowds, so we walked right to the front of the line at 10:15pm, carrying in \u0026rsquo;n out burgers for our diehard compatriots. it was an event\u0026ndash;a lot of dressed up people as you\u0026rsquo;d expect, and we were even interviewed the stanford daily newspaper, and made it in two days later (our whole ancient greek class was there, so it was a novelty).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"life happens between movies"},{"content":"well it\u0026rsquo;s been a great past few days. the crusade retreat was lots of fun\u0026ndash;great times of sincere worship, productive times of planning for next year, refreshing times of napsdevotionals, energizing times of playing various sports in the bright danville sun, and relaxing times of sitting in the hot tub.\nunfortunately all the sun, while it gave me a nice tan, also gave me a few cold sores, especially since there was no grape juice to be had all weekend. cold sores always bring out the masochistic side of me. no more on that.\nin other news, su.market has found me a buyer for my old computer system and some other things i was selling. i heart su.market. also, i beat jedi knight 2. a very excellent computer game on all accounts. what else is going on\u0026hellip;.our bible study is having a date night sometime soon so i need to think of a girl to ask.\nalso, i\u0026rsquo;m going to see star wars episode 2 tomorrow night at 12:01am\u0026ndash;opening show at the very large cinema complex in san jose. it should be awesome\u0026ndash;there will be a ton of superfans there, and i will bring a little light-up lightsaber keychain i have in order to fit in.\njars of clay is playing right now, roughly 10 minutes from where i\u0026rsquo;m sitting, but i can\u0026rsquo;t go because i\u0026rsquo;m working. ah well. c\u0026rsquo;est la vie and all that crap, but i don\u0026rsquo;t feel like going into it.\nvirtual disc on spin: i break chairs | damien jurado\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/but-i-dont-feel-like-going-into-it/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewell it\u0026rsquo;s been a great past few days. the crusade retreat was lots of fun\u0026ndash;great times of sincere worship, productive times of planning for next year, refreshing times of napsdevotionals, energizing times of playing various sports in the bright danville sun, and relaxing times of sitting in the hot tub.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eunfortunately all the sun, while it gave me a nice tan, also gave me a few cold sores, especially since there was no grape juice to be had all weekend. cold sores always bring out the masochistic side of me. no more on that.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"but i don't feel like going into it"},{"content":"all my friends back home have packed up and moved out of college for the summer. they\u0026rsquo;re driving around town getting jobs. they\u0026rsquo;re going shopping and going to shows, they\u0026rsquo;re taking road trips to see each other. they\u0026rsquo;re sitting down and looking back at the semester, contemplating the changes in their lives. they\u0026rsquo;re making lists of the top ten cds of spring 2002, as if spring were over.\nsadly, it\u0026rsquo;s not. and my summer doesn\u0026rsquo;t start until, for them, it starts coming to a close.\nthat\u0026rsquo;s another reason i wanted to stay at stanford over the summer\u0026ndash;that long month and a half from the middle of august through september, when everyone else is back at school and i\u0026rsquo;m at home, working, or sitting around being lonely.\nmaybe i shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be lonely (after all, i\u0026rsquo;ve got family, and not everyone has left town), or maybe i shouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to run from it.\nunfortunately, it\u0026rsquo;s looking more and more like i won\u0026rsquo;t have the opportunity to make that moral, character-building decision for myself. unless i find a job soon, my housing opportunity will be gone, and i\u0026rsquo;ll be going home to florida for the summer.\nnow don\u0026rsquo;t get me wrong\u0026ndash;i love orlando. i love it to death. i love my friends and family. and it would be a great sacrifice to stay here at stanford, and miss out on all that. i also love the florida weather, the warm, breezy nights devoid of that irritating chill so prevalent in northern california. i love the beaches, the sunrise over the atlantic, the tropical feel\u0026hellip;\nall the same, i want an adventure. i want to live on my own. i want to burn my own frozen pizza in my own stove. i want to be able to invite a girl over to my place: my small, crappy, overpriced apartment. i don\u0026rsquo;t want to be babied by the university, or charged exorbitant fees for their definition of fine cuisine.\ni also wanted to apply for and get a job on my own\u0026ndash;because of my own credentials, and not because my parents worked at the place. i wanted to make it, with god\u0026rsquo;s grace. i don\u0026rsquo;t want to be lonely or alone\u0026ndash;wherever i am in the next few months, i plan on hanging out with people daily and building relationships to the best of my poor ability. i just wanted to be truly self-sufficient (in terms of housing and food) for the first time in 19.5 years.\nbut maybe i\u0026rsquo;m not ready anyway.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/i-want-to-grow-up/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eall my friends back home have packed up and moved out of college for the summer. they\u0026rsquo;re driving around town getting jobs. they\u0026rsquo;re going shopping and going to shows, they\u0026rsquo;re taking road trips to see each other. they\u0026rsquo;re sitting down and looking back at the semester, contemplating the changes in their lives. they\u0026rsquo;re making lists of the top ten cds of spring 2002, as if spring were over.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esadly, it\u0026rsquo;s not. and my summer doesn\u0026rsquo;t start until, for them, it starts coming to a close.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i want to grow up"},{"content":"yesterday i was attacked by a bad mood. it snuck up behind me and sunk its claws in before i knew what was happening.\ntwo main reasons: 1) i didn\u0026rsquo;t get the summer job i applied for. 2) another \u0026gt;1300 draw number. what kills me is my friend whose draw numbers for both the last years add up to less than 50. i hate this screwball university for more than its dining plans.\nthe funny thing was, neither of these setbacks really bothered me, nor did i even consider them setbacks. so i didn\u0026rsquo;t get the job\u0026ndash;either i\u0026rsquo;d get another one or i\u0026rsquo;d go home for the summer. what does it matter? and i\u0026rsquo;m used to sucky draw numbers, so that should have been irrelevant. i guess my human nature shuffles around sometime, randomly bestowing upon me those characteristics which i thought myself better than: anger, disappointment, disillusionment, and the rest. ah well i\u0026rsquo;m better now.\nwhat was good is that i did a lot of work last night, and got moderately caught up. now i\u0026rsquo;m only moderately behind!\nright now i\u0026rsquo;m looking at 1,920,000 pixels. that\u0026rsquo;s a lot of pixels (i got a new monitor). in other news i broke my hiatus from the wall and cranked tonight. it felt good. now i just need to get running again. maybe tomorrow.\nin other news, i\u0026rsquo;m going on crusade\u0026rsquo;s spring retreat this weekend, until sunday. it\u0026rsquo;s up in berkeley, so ick. but i hear the place has a hot tub. yeah i know what i\u0026rsquo;ll be doing. rock.\ndo you know what it\u0026rsquo;s all about? if you stop and think about it, it\u0026rsquo;s simple. LIFE, and LOVE, and WHY.\nvirtual disc on spin: big blue sky | bebo norman\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/life-and-love-and-why/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eyesterday i was attacked by a bad mood. it snuck up behind me and sunk its claws in before i knew what was happening.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etwo main reasons: 1) i didn\u0026rsquo;t get the summer job i applied for. 2) another \u0026gt;1300 draw number. what kills me is my friend whose draw numbers for both the last years add up to less than 50. i hate this screwball university for more than its dining plans.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"life and love and why"},{"content":"the last wedding i\u0026rsquo;d been to, before this weekend, was my freshman year in high school (and before that when i was 11), and i didn\u0026rsquo;t even know the people getting married. so it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been a surprise when i almost cried 5 or 6 times during the ceremony. my beautiful aunt, young and radiant, was a living symbol of how christ sees the church: pure, dressed in white, and simply lovely. in that way the wedding was a deeply spiritual encouragement to me.\nmy family stayed with our friends, the morrises. we\u0026rsquo;ve known the morrises since when i was in elementary school in texas. we used to get together on friday nights and watch movies together, and go out to tia\u0026rsquo;s / benavides / rosa\u0026rsquo;s after church on sundays. they have two girls, emily and ellen. emily is my age/grade, and ellen is rachel\u0026rsquo;s.\ni lived in texas for 10 years. i didn\u0026rsquo;t realize it so much when i lived there, but 10 years is a long time. i\u0026rsquo;ve never lived anywhere even a quarter as long. so as the two families were sitting around on saturday night, enjoying each other\u0026rsquo;s company and talking far into the night, it hit me what a truly marvelous thing it is to have friends that know you, that you grew up with, and that remain friends irregardless of how often you talk and how often you see them.\nthe short of it is, it felt like i never left. and it was a beautiful time. emily\u0026rsquo;s getting married in a month, and ellen is now off to college, but with all the millions of destructive changes that could have occurred, they, and my siblings and i, came away feeling as if our friendship had grown, not faded. i believe this is indicative of a very special bond, hard to come by in these days of isolation, which i have somehow been given in so many friendships. i can only praise god for it.\ni visited a few of my favorite places, like cd warehouse, where i bought new albums by stairwell, radiohead, the gloria record, and damien jurado. we also drove by the high school and our old houses. i withdrew into myself and dwelled for a while on the sweet times the lord blessed me with in texas. but while i felt that sharp stab of nostalgia, i wasn\u0026rsquo;t sad\u0026ndash;i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t trade anything for the way things have worked out, with orlando and stanford.\ni flew back on sunday, tired from not having slept all weekend, and from doing hours of put-off homework on the plane. yesterday i skipped class for the first time and went to fry\u0026rsquo;s and bought a computer. i need a new computer at least every two years, and it\u0026rsquo;s been approaching that time, so i thought i\u0026rsquo;d better get it. for those of you who care, it\u0026rsquo;s a sony vaio 1.6ghz 512mb 80gb 64geforce4. a sweet machine on all accounts. the downside is that it takes a while for stanford to set up my internet to work on the new computer, so i haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to send or receive e-mail [easily] since i went to texas, or get on IM (i know, it\u0026rsquo;s weird not to be on IM 24-7).\ni also did something very bad\u0026ndash;i bought myself a new computer game to play on my new computer: jedi knight ii. not only is it the coolest game i have ever played in my life, i\u0026rsquo;m sure it\u0026rsquo;s the best game of all time. i won\u0026rsquo;t waste time explaining why\u0026ndash;let\u0026rsquo;s just say that if you\u0026rsquo;ve ever dreamed about being luke skywalker or the young obi-wan kenobi, replete with force powers and flips and aerial lightsaber attacks and any other sweet move in existence, this is the game for you.\nin other news i\u0026rsquo;m still awaiting word on the job i applied for at academic computing.\nand\u0026hellip;.i think that\u0026rsquo;s about it. i\u0026rsquo;m thinking of flying back to texas in early june for emily\u0026rsquo;s wedding, since my brother will be in town and maybe my parents, and i was reminded this weekend that she\u0026rsquo;s a really good friend, maybe the most like a sister of any of my friends.\n[come soon], sweet summer. [come soon], sweet slumber.\ndisc on spin: i break chairs | damien jurado\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/weddings-are-beautiful/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe last wedding i\u0026rsquo;d been to, before this weekend, was my freshman year in high school (and before that when i was 11), and i didn\u0026rsquo;t even know the people getting married. so it shouldn\u0026rsquo;t have been a surprise when i almost cried 5 or 6 times during the ceremony. my beautiful aunt, young and radiant, was a living symbol of how christ sees the church: pure, dressed in white, and simply lovely. in that way the wedding was a deeply spiritual encouragement to me.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"weddings are beautiful"},{"content":"paper finished, laundry in the washing machine, girl at late night getting me chicken tenders, leaving in 2.85 hours for dallas.\ni\u0026rsquo;ll be gone until sunday night late \u0026ndash; take care.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/going-to-dallas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003epaper finished, laundry in the washing machine, girl at late night getting me chicken tenders, leaving in 2.85 hours for dallas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ll be gone until sunday night late \u0026ndash; take care.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"going to dallas"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;ve been more aware recently of my self-centredness. it\u0026rsquo;s in all my actions\u0026hellip;my thoughts\u0026hellip;\nat least being aware of it i\u0026rsquo;m able to laugh at it to its face, and so suffer only irritation instead of falling into major error. not that i don\u0026rsquo;t fall into major error, and sometimes intentionally so, but i find that being cynical about myself a little more acceptable than being ignorantly self-centred. now for the next step..\ni\u0026rsquo;m going to dallas on friday, for my aunt\u0026rsquo;s wedding. so i have a ton of work to do before then. that\u0026rsquo;s kind of annoying.\nin other news, i HAVEN\u0026rsquo;T SKIPPED A CLASS THIS QUARTER. its amazing, it really is. someone buy me a CD.\nalso, i\u0026rsquo;m writing a paper on descartes which is due before the end of tomorrow. it\u0026rsquo;s hard to think of things no one has said about descartes. sucky. if you want to offer moral support, feel free.\nlet\u0026rsquo;s see anything else going on\u0026hellip;.i\u0026rsquo;ll be getting a new computer soon, wahoo\u0026hellip;.the new pringles flavor \u0026ldquo;sweet mesquite bbq\u0026rdquo; is nice\u0026hellip;did a presentation on the mayan language today in spanish\u0026hellip;i ate too many mike and ikes because there\u0026rsquo;s a box sitting on my desk\u0026hellip;i need to go to bed\u0026hellip;draw deadline is this weekend, and draw is crazy as always. praying for a sweet number. please oh please.\nvirtual disc on spin: jealous sound | the jealous sound\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/05/sweet-mesquite/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ve been more aware recently of my self-centredness. it\u0026rsquo;s in all my actions\u0026hellip;my thoughts\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eat least being aware of it i\u0026rsquo;m able to laugh at it to its face, and so suffer only irritation instead of falling into major error. not that i don\u0026rsquo;t fall into major error, and sometimes intentionally so, but i find that being cynical about myself a little more acceptable than being ignorantly self-centred. now for the next step..\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sweet mesquite!"},{"content":"wow\u0026hellip;it\u0026rsquo;s been 6 days since i\u0026rsquo;ve touched my blog, or read anyone else\u0026rsquo;s. haven\u0026rsquo;t had a spare minute. let\u0026rsquo;s make a list of some things i\u0026rsquo;ve done in the last week:\ni ran a lot\ni did schoolwork occasionally\ni worked at my job\ni went climbing some\ndan and i had a great night of conversation with our friend shannon\ni did no work this last weekend\ni went to santa cruz with dan and marie to watch our ultimate teams kick butt\u0026hellip;such a sweet game.\ni watched romeo must die on friday and vanilla sky yesterday at flicks.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been doing my devotions in spanish, to change things up a little\ni made a resume so i can apply for jobs here this summer\ni wrote a song\ni played lots of computer games and helped dan play computer games\ni decided to form an underground rebellion against the dining hall. we\u0026rsquo;re going to bomb the place.\nand that\u0026rsquo;s what i can remember. don\u0026rsquo;t worry, i won\u0026rsquo;t go into any boring details. lunch time!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/everyone-needs-an-underground-rebellion/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewow\u0026hellip;it\u0026rsquo;s been 6 days since i\u0026rsquo;ve touched my blog, or read anyone else\u0026rsquo;s. haven\u0026rsquo;t had a spare minute. let\u0026rsquo;s make a list of some things i\u0026rsquo;ve done in the last week:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei ran a lot\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei did schoolwork occasionally\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei worked at my job\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei went climbing some\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edan and i had a great night of conversation with our friend shannon\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei did no work this last weekend\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei went to santa cruz with dan and marie to watch our ultimate teams kick butt\u0026hellip;such a sweet game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei watched \u003cem\u003eromeo must die\u003c/em\u003e on friday and \u003cem\u003evanilla sky\u003c/em\u003e yesterday at flicks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ve been doing my devotions in spanish, to change things up a little\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei made a resume so i can apply for jobs here this summer\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei wrote a song\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei played lots of computer games and helped dan play computer games\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei decided to form an underground rebellion against the dining hall. we\u0026rsquo;re going to bomb the place.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e","title":"everyone needs an underground rebellion"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of stuff in the last 5 days. i don\u0026rsquo;t remember exactly what now, but it\u0026rsquo;s cool. here are some highlights:\nthis last weekend was admit weekend, and oddly enough, i got an e-mail from my second cousin (my grandma\u0026rsquo;s sister\u0026rsquo;s daughter), who was at stanford with her husband and daughter, who\u0026rsquo;s been accepted here. i met them and ate dinner and told them my thoughts on stanford. they seem like a nice family, and i hope she goes here\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;d be cool to have a relative on campus, even a distant relative.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been running quite a bit. i did 4 miles saturday, i think i ran on sunday, 3 miles monday, and this morning i got up at 7am and ran 8 miles. the farthest i\u0026rsquo;ve ever run before is 5, so 8 is an accomplishment. the only downside is that i ran it really slow\u0026hellip;averaging a 9-minute mile. normally that wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be cause for disappointment, but everyone at this school is so freaking athletic\u0026hellip;even an 8-mile run is weak at 9:00/mi. whatever. the best part is that about 5-6 miles, i totally felt like i was just floating along\u0026hellip;my breathing steadied out and i felt like i could run forever.\nthe most annoying thing for me right now is writing vocals. i have 4 or 5 songs that i have music for, and i think they\u0026rsquo;re great songs\u0026hellip;but i can\u0026rsquo;t think up any good vocal lines. i can think of tons of vocal lines\u0026ndash;don\u0026rsquo;t get me wrong\u0026ndash;but none that really draw me in. and i hate boring/sucky vocal lines. this is always my curse.\nschool is going well. i have two big projects due at the end of next week, and that\u0026rsquo;s about it, apart from the tri-weekly intensely hard greek reading homework, and the negligible readings for spanish.\nyesterday i felt myself slipping into mediocrity and blandness, so i took a walk to the quad and laid in a quiet mosaic of shade and sun in front of mem chu, watching the leaves above me rustle in the breeze. it was the most beautiful day of the quarter thus far, with the perfect combination of temperature, sky-blueness, breeze, and lazy ambient noise. i closed my eyes and prayed that i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t slip into old boring patterns of laziness, indifference, running from god, and having meaningless thoughts.\nthen i took off my sandals and walked around, savoring my few minutes of meditation and hoping they had effected some change.\nin other news, i have been accepted to the co-term program in philosophy, so i\u0026rsquo;ll be here for two more years! i\u0026rsquo;m excited about the opportunity, even though it might mean i will have to take more units. some more thoughts about the recent future: i\u0026rsquo;m probably going to be at stanford over the summer, working. don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly what yet, or where i\u0026rsquo;ll stay, but i just wanted to stay out here and get a good job if i could. i\u0026rsquo;m also now planning on applying to go overseas next spring to oxford, if i can manage the classes.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been hanging out with people a lot more this quarter than i have historically. dan and i decided that we should put more time into hanging out with people and doing stuff that has more lasting value than problem sets. so if you ever want to hang out, just give me a call.\nlistening to: \u0026ldquo;affectionately yours,\u0026rdquo; | jonathan lipps\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/barefoot-on-sandstone/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ve done a lot of stuff in the last 5 days. i don\u0026rsquo;t remember exactly what now, but it\u0026rsquo;s cool. here are some highlights:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethis last weekend was admit weekend, and oddly enough, i got an e-mail from my second cousin (my grandma\u0026rsquo;s sister\u0026rsquo;s daughter), who was at stanford with her husband and daughter, who\u0026rsquo;s been accepted here. i met them and ate dinner and told them my thoughts on stanford. they seem like a nice family, and i hope she goes here\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;d be cool to have a relative on campus, even a distant relative.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"barefoot on sandstone"},{"content":"the last few days have seen a few changes in my life.\ntuesday dan and i decided that our room sucked and that we needed a futon to sit on. to do homework on\u0026hellip;.to let other people sit on when they visit us, etc\u0026hellip; so i fired up su.market and lo and behold, someone was selling a futon for $65. dan and i drove to roble, checked the thing out, offered the guy $55 for it, he met us halfway at $60 and it was a deal.\nit took dan\u0026rsquo;s engineering skills to fit the futon in his civic, but fit it we did, doing our best to keep the mattress getting too wet in the semi-pouring rain. it took my interior decorating skills to rearrange the room to make sufficient space for a new object. for those of you who have never visited my room\u0026hellip;.it\u0026rsquo;s hard to explain how much stuff we have\u0026hellip;appliances, giant mackie speakers, guitars, sound equipment, beds, desks, wardrobes, boxes of food and drink, trash cans, boxes of old clothes\u0026hellip;.it took a lot of work to fit a 15sq. foot futon in amidst all the clutter. but fit it we did, with some rearranging.\nit\u0026rsquo;s also hard to explain what a difference a futon makes. it\u0026rsquo;s absolutely beautiful to be able to sit somewhere besides a hard wooden desk chair. and my bed is lofted so high sitting on my bed is out of the question.\nwednesday was also an interesting day\u0026hellip;i made it to all my classes with a far amount of work done for each. then, i got word that i was invited to dinner at 4:30 at il fornaio\u0026rsquo;s, a nice italian restaurant in palo alto. see, i was on a team with campus crusade that put together a lecture by dr. henry schaefer (scheduled for last night). i personally did stuff like design the flyer, and give general wise advice (this last task was self-appointed, obviously). so, the whole team was invited to dinner with the doctor before the lecture. it was pretty cool to eat with a world-renowned chemical physicist. i asked him questions about stuff, like, what the heck is quantum chemistry.\nhe learned that i was a philosophy major, and because of that i later got mention in his lecture\u0026hellip;.(\u0026ldquo;now here\u0026rsquo;s some philosophy, which may be a little strange in this talk, but i\u0026rsquo;m sure a young fellow i ate dinner with this evening is very glad we\u0026rsquo;re talking about some philosophy..\u0026rdquo;) that sort of thing.\nthe talk was good\u0026ndash;he had wonderful presentation. my only disappointment was that he seemed to not track with some of the questions that people asked. i know that he knew the answers, but more often than not he answered a question that wasn\u0026rsquo;t precisely what had been asked. oh well. you know those smart science nerd types\u0026hellip;\ni just pray that it will generate discussion about god and spiritual things!\nafter the talk i went back to my room to work on modal logic, and then realized that i didn\u0026rsquo;t know how to do any of the problems in the problem set. so i sat back and did some metaclass thinking, and came to the conclusion that my foundation for logic, which was only barely there in 160a (due to skipping 159), was too weak to sustain me with anything more than a b- in modal logic. i figured that there was no outstanding reason why i\u0026rsquo;d want to punish myself in this way, and decided that i should drop the class.\ni\u0026rsquo;ll take 159 in the fall, and then get back to modal logic next year sometime, hopefully. if not, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t even matter\u0026hellip;i mean, it could be that i\u0026rsquo;m just not as interested in logic as i thought i was.\nin any case i now have only 12 units\u0026ndash;the bare minimum\u0026ndash;and three of them are pass/fail. which means that my quarter should be significantly easier, and allow more time for lots of fun and productive activities.\nin celebration of this i slept until lunch today, and i\u0026rsquo;m now at work reading lysias. life is good!\nminidisc on spin: control | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/trimming-the-fat/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe last few days have seen a few changes in my life.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etuesday dan and i decided that our room sucked and that we needed a futon to sit on. to do homework on\u0026hellip;.to let other people sit on when they visit us, etc\u0026hellip; so i fired up su.market and lo and behold, someone was selling a futon for $65. dan and i drove to roble, checked the thing out, offered the guy $55 for it, he met us halfway at $60 and it was a deal.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"trimming the fat"},{"content":"i spent yesterday and half of today losing focus, vision, and clarity. tonight i spent hours cleaning and rearranging my room, and i\u0026rsquo;ve regained my sight.\nyesterday i went to church, tried to think about god and not all the pretty girls (which was successful, in my opinion), then ate lunch. i lazed around thinking that i should do work for awhile, but didn\u0026rsquo;t have the heart. so i put on my running shoes and went out for a run around campus drive, to see if i could beat my previous record. at first i thought i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to, because there was a very strong wind (we\u0026rsquo;re talking 20-30mph fairly sustained). but, i just ran faster\u0026hellip;about 3.5 miles in, i started to flag. at that point i thought to myself, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re such a wuss, you always stop if it hurts to much. remember that 5k you did last year? you had to walk for a few seconds\u0026hellip;and that\u0026rsquo;s weak. keep running\u0026hellip;what\u0026rsquo;s the worst that could happen? it\u0026rsquo;s all mental\u0026hellip;so i kept saying these things and i finished. not strong, i don\u0026rsquo;t think, but i finished, and i ended up beating my previous record by exactly a minute. which is 15 seconds per mile for 4 miles faster\u0026hellip;not horrible.\nthen i went to santa cruz with alex polk, ryan moore, and chris haughey. i thought it would be as hot at the beach as at stanford (felt like about 200 degrees while i was running), but boy was i wrong. as soon as we crossed the mountains, there was continuous cloud cover, gale-force winds, and sub-60 degree temperatures. i had to borrow one of ryan\u0026rsquo;s shirts so i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t die. i snapped some pretty cool photos of the shoreline cliffs, though, so it was worth it. we also went to this little bakery in an old town and got fresh, hot artichoke french bread. mmmm. then we went to another beach, where there was a supposed \u0026lsquo;secret cove\u0026rsquo;. we started walking along the cliffs to where there was this supposed \u0026lsquo;rope\u0026rsquo; that we could climb down the cliffs with to the cove.\non the way we looked down to the beach, and there was a naked man. he was walking around the beach\u0026hellip;now standing by the water, now walking back and forth. he didn\u0026rsquo;t seemed ashamed of the fact that he was naked, even with other people and families on the beach.\nwalking along the cliffline in the gusty wind was a little scary but fun, and soon we came to the rope, which we climbed down, and got to a rocky cove where the water came in with crashes and whirlpools. we jumped from rock to rock and stood on ancient ground jutting out\u0026hellip;barely part of the continent. still, it was cold, and after exploring around, we made the long trek back to the car. we drove 15 or 20 minutes into santa cruz and got a bite to eat before going to santa cruz bible church for a sunday evening college service. the worship there was excellent, and i found myself singing freely as it\u0026rsquo;s so hard to do sometimes\u0026hellip;but i confess that the talk annoyed me. i don\u0026rsquo;t even remember what it was now\u0026hellip;i think i put it out of my mind.\nsadly, it was 10 before we even left the church, and i\u0026rsquo;d put off all my work since the previous thursday. it hung like an oppressive pall of mirk over my soul\u0026hellip;i had so much to do by today there was no way i\u0026rsquo;d ever get it done, after the hour drive back. i was becoming fragmented and blurred\u0026hellip;simultaneously distressed and ambivalent\u0026hellip;.distressed enough to worry and fret, but ambivalent enough to procrastinate. and that\u0026rsquo;s what i did. eventually i got a little bit of my greek done\u0026ndash;maybe 15% of the work required for today. i didn\u0026rsquo;t do any of my spanish or philosophy. i was just too pathetically unmotivated. still, i did something until 2am, but it wasn\u0026rsquo;t work.\ntoday was pretty bad\u0026hellip;i was completely unprepared for my greek, had a rotten and unhealthy lunch doing a spanish essay that wasn\u0026rsquo;t even due (and of course something else was that i hadn\u0026rsquo;t done), and finally i fell completely asleep in the back row of phil 102. then i went home and slept some more, until 5, when i was supposed to have section for modal logic. i got on my bike and went to west campus, and realized i didn\u0026rsquo;t even know where the building was that i was trying to find. who has section at CSLI anyway\u0026hellip;so i rode around, remembering that i\u0026rsquo;d seen it on my run yesterday. i ended up passing it without knowing it, riding for about 15 minutes, then actually finding it half an hour after section started. i was so fed up with the whole business (and the strong winds which made it a herculean task to bicycle around), i went home.\nbible study was at 6:45 and i wasn\u0026rsquo;t excited about it at all. i felt like i\u0026rsquo;d had a pathetic day and gotten nothing done, and the last thing i needed to do was spend more time being \u0026lsquo;unproductive\u0026rsquo;. of course, i knew that going to bible study was, especially considering my feelings, the most productive thing i could do\u0026hellip;i just didn\u0026rsquo;t want to admit it. but i went and decided that i really hadn\u0026rsquo;t been letting the spirit into my life at all recently\u0026hellip;and i needed to give up my plans and my control (which i could see, based on today, were ultra-sucky). i came back at 9pm encouraged.\ni spent the rest of the night cleaning and reorganizing my room. it was really a mess\u0026ndash;the floor was horribly covered with popcorn kernels, jelly beans, crushed chex mix, bottles, weights, guitars, overflowing trash cans, backpacks, climbing gear, sound equipment, and whatever else\u0026hellip;i felt suffocated. but the suffocation was worse than that\u0026ndash;the insides of my desk were also dirty\u0026hellip;each drawer sloppy and disarrayed.\ni think that i am closely tied to the state of my room, because, after spending a few hours cleaning out my desk i felt as if it were my soul that had just received a good scrubbing. and i felt that, when i rigged up a cardboard platform suspended by strips of leather cut from an old belt upon which i placed a set of 4 speakers to make more room on my desk, it was my spirits that were lifted. finally, i carted the full load of dirty clothes off to the laundry, and while they were churning happily i vacuumed the room. immediately afterwards i felt such a sense of peace i knew everything would be ok. the day may have sucked, school may be going down the drain, but at least my room is clean and my soul is in order!\nnow it\u0026rsquo;s 2:30 am and dan is asleep. i\u0026rsquo;m waiting for my clothes to finish their cycle in the dryer so that i can put them away and go to bed. i didn\u0026rsquo;t actually do any work today either, and i know it will catch up to me soon. but i feel more prepared to deal with it now.\nlistening to: my long-windedness\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/endurance-and-organization/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei spent yesterday and half of today losing focus, vision, and clarity. tonight i spent hours cleaning and rearranging my room, and i\u0026rsquo;ve regained my sight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eyesterday i went to church, tried to think about god and not all the pretty girls (which was successful, in my opinion), then ate lunch. i lazed around thinking that i should do work for awhile, but didn\u0026rsquo;t have the heart. so i put on my running shoes and went out for a run around campus drive, to see if i could beat my previous record. at first i thought i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be able to, because there was a very strong wind (we\u0026rsquo;re talking 20-30mph fairly sustained). but, i just ran faster\u0026hellip;about 3.5 miles in, i started to flag. at that point i thought to myself, you know, you\u0026rsquo;re such a wuss, you always stop if it hurts to much. remember that 5k you did last year? you had to walk for a few seconds\u0026hellip;and that\u0026rsquo;s weak. keep running\u0026hellip;what\u0026rsquo;s the worst that could happen? it\u0026rsquo;s all mental\u0026hellip;so i kept saying these things and i finished. not strong, i don\u0026rsquo;t think, but i finished, and i ended up beating my previous record by exactly a minute. which is 15 seconds per mile for 4 miles faster\u0026hellip;not horrible.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"endurance and organization"},{"content":"the rest of the week went quite well, even considering all the work i had to do (on an EE or CS scale, this isn\u0026rsquo;t much, but for me it is) in greek, philosophy, spanish, etc\u0026hellip;\nso let\u0026rsquo;s get the dumb obligatory i\u0026rsquo;m-in-college school news out of the way: i did my first modal logic problem set, and it was a much different experience than predicate logic\u0026hellip;lots more little drawings and figures, which i tend to like better. class on thursday taxed me seriously, though\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;re talking about the complexity of a given task in the modal language, measured in P, NP, PSPACE, NPSPACE, EXP, etc\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s all very weird and i think the next homework might kick my butt unless i do the whole take it by the horns and jump on it and hit its butt thing again.\nwhat else have i done in the past few days? wednesday was crusade, then i studied at the copo until late, and cv was there a while. thursday i worked and went climbing and started on my paper, \u0026ldquo;the enaselvai language\u0026rdquo;. see, today i went to a \u0026ldquo;conference\u0026rdquo; (in quotes) for people who make constructed languages (conlangs). i thought on thursday, if i\u0026rsquo;m going to go to this conference, i\u0026rsquo;d better have something written down about enaselvai, or it won\u0026rsquo;t be very interesting and we might just sit around wondering what to talk about. so i spent a lot of time thursday writing the history of the language, and even some preliminary grammar.\nfriday i spent a lot of time on it\u0026hellip;much more than i meant to. only half-way through the project did i realize what a daunting task it actually was to set down all the grammatical / syntactical / phonological / morphological features of even an extremely basic, invented language. but, i\u0026rsquo;d already started it, and i didn\u0026rsquo;t want to not finish it by saturday, so i stayed up until 3am working on it. i took a break for a few hours to go watch life is beautiful at the history corner with a bunch of cornerstone people. i hadn\u0026rsquo;t ever seen the movie before, and i thought it was great! intelligent writing, humorous yet sympathetic, pretty yet not shallow, and saddening and thought-provoking. i usually don\u0026rsquo;t like movies in its general genre, but i was very happy that i saw it!\ntoday is/was saturday. i woke up at 10 and printed out a few copies of my paper to take to the conference, and then i hopped on my bike to catch the 11:30 caltrain to san francisco.\nmay i just say that the trains sucked today. i rode like the fashion police was after me (my trendy nalgene bottle dangling from my backpack only barely keeping them from devouring me), because i thought i was going to be late. i pulled into the station just in time, and waited\u0026hellip;.and waited\u0026hellip;and waited. the freaking train was half an hour late. these kinds of delays are not good, because i had to switch to two completely different train systems to get to berkeley, and i was supposed to be there at 1:30.\nmy original plan was to leave palo alto caltrain at 11:30, putting me into sf at 12:30. i figured 30 minutes to take the MUNI to the BART at embarcadero, and then another 30 from there to berkeley. that made it right at 1:30, not to mention however long it took me to walk after that.\nthe caltrain being late put me into sf at 1:10. i got on a MUNI right away, but in the course of our journey we stopped and our driver had lunch (he said we were \u0026rsquo;early\u0026rsquo;). maybe he was early but i sure wasn\u0026rsquo;t. i didn\u0026rsquo;t even get on a train to berkeley until after 1:30. the short of it is that i was an hour and a half late. stupid trains.\nit turned out there were only two other people there\u0026ndash;the guy hosting it and his friend (who, oddly enough, i had met on the internet in junior high / early high school, and not talked to since then. and here he shows up in person). so we walked to an outdoors cafe and sat and baked in the sun and talked about invented languages. the guys were pretty cool\u0026ndash;not nearly as dorky as i thought they would be, and both big radiohead fans. we went through enaselvai, and they seemed impressed by the presentation, if not the language itself. they\u0026rsquo;re both linguistics majors, so i learned a lot of new terminology and concepts. lastly, we went to a classroom and used the chalkboard to make up a new language together. we made up a phonology, case system (involving a new invention of mine\u0026ndash;the \u0026ldquo;attitude\u0026rdquo; system), verb tenses, etc\u0026hellip; it was a VOS ergative-absolutive language, and it was the weirdest thing any of us had ever created. but it was fun.\ni left berkeley at 6:30, and due to more train stupidity, arrived back at stanford at 9:30. more out of habit than hope, i went to the mailbox to check for control, the new pedro the lion album that i have been looking for in the mail [extremely impatiently] for a week now. you have to understand, there is absolutely nothing like a new pedro album. i don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;ve ever looked forward to an album this much, period. so i let out a whoop of joy and utter delight when i saw, crammed unassumingly in my mailbox, a manilla package from jadetree.com.\ni held it over my head and said the incantation: \u0026ldquo;GENTLEMEN, I HAVE ACHIEVED CONTROL. YOU MAY PROCEED WITH THE PLAN.\u0026rdquo; well, not really, but i thought about saying it.\nback in the room dan and i invited serena and shannon over again and we hung out for a while and watched a bit of monty python. then the girls left so we shut off the movie and dan and i had a control listening party (dan bought the cd too). i layed on the floor and let the album soak in, playing it nonstop from beginning to end. it\u0026rsquo;s amazing. you can\u0026rsquo;t hold pedro back\u0026ndash;he just goes to the edge (and sometimes over it in terms of what is socially acceptable\u0026hellip;but i love it because it\u0026rsquo;s done so well).\nnow i need to sleep so i can go to church tomorrow, and then down to santa cruz for some beach time. somewhere i\u0026rsquo;ll have to fit in some homework.\nvirtual disc on spin: ok computer | radiohead\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/sf-conlang-conference/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe rest of the week went quite well, even considering all the work i had to do (on an EE or CS scale, this isn\u0026rsquo;t much, but for me it is) in greek, philosophy, spanish, etc\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eso let\u0026rsquo;s get the dumb obligatory i\u0026rsquo;m-in-college school news out of the way: i did my first modal logic problem set, and it was a much different experience than predicate logic\u0026hellip;lots more little drawings and figures, which i tend to like better. class on thursday taxed me seriously, though\u0026ndash;we\u0026rsquo;re talking about the complexity of a given task in the modal language, measured in P, NP, PSPACE, NPSPACE, EXP, etc\u0026hellip; it\u0026rsquo;s all very weird and i think the next homework might kick my butt unless i do the whole take it by the horns and jump on it and hit its butt thing again.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"SF conlang conference"},{"content":"sunday night, we\u0026rsquo;re all sitting around during the seder dinner. dan and justin are to my right, and 3 or 4 pretty girls to the left. we\u0026rsquo;re all having a great time, great conversation, and of course dan and justin and i are competing to be the coolest so that the girls will like us. during a lull in conversation, when nobody around is really talking, dan turns to me and says, loudly, \u0026ldquo;jon, how would you describe what we did last night?\u0026rdquo;\nverbatim. so everyone turns to me expectantly, and more than a bit curiously. dan of course is referring to hanging out with serena, but no one else knows that. i try to forestall visions of illicit goings-on, but it\u0026rsquo;s too late.\nat least it was funny.\ni went to all of my classes yesterday, and actually enjoyed it. i enjoyed the feeling of not wondering if i was behind or missing something important. i also enjoyed the feeling of doing work in my room, and knowing that i was making some sort of progress on a definable scale. i haven\u0026rsquo;t felt that in a long time (mostly because of the not doing work thing).\ni was part of a psychology study for .5 hrs yesterday, for $7. i do them every once in a while, because it\u0026rsquo;s easy quick money and i get a kick out of trying to outsmart the study and screw with the results.\non top of school and all that, i had a small victory at the wall last night\u0026ndash;i finally conquered the 6 i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on for a month or so\u0026hellip;the first 6 i\u0026rsquo;ve done! it was great to feel strong, and to feel like i\u0026rsquo;d improved. now for the next plateau\u0026hellip;\nin other news, i\u0026rsquo;ve decided to kick modal logic\u0026rsquo;s butt. i let first-order logic rule me, but no more of that pacifist crap\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;m taking this class by the horns and\u0026hellip;what, then, i don\u0026rsquo;t know\u0026hellip;maybe doing that cowboy trick of flipping over the horns and landing backwards on the beast then slapping its butt to make it go. first problem set due thursday, so i\u0026rsquo;d better start on it.\nto continue with school updates, we\u0026rsquo;ve started reading lysias\u0026rsquo; orationes III in greek. in the class, and the language, i mean. ancient greek is really hard, i realized, after going back to taking a conversational spanish class. spanish is so easy\u0026ndash;you can many times translate word-for-word and have it make sense. translating greek is like finding pieces of a puzzle all over a paragraph, linking up different words that are in no spatial relation to each other, using different obscure rules and constructions to equate these to dramatically different constructions in english, then trying to make sense of each phrase with respect to the others around it.\nnow to read 40 more pages of objections and replies to descartes\u0026rsquo; mediations on first philosophy. if you\u0026rsquo;ve never read it, you really should. the mediations themselves can\u0026rsquo;t be more than 40-50 pages, and they more or less defined the problems in philosophy that we\u0026rsquo;re still thinking about today.\nvirtual disc on spin: when the world sings | fine china\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/slap-that-beasts-butt/","summary":"\u003cp\u003esunday night, we\u0026rsquo;re all sitting around during the seder dinner. dan and justin are to my right, and 3 or 4 pretty girls to the left. we\u0026rsquo;re all having a great time, great conversation, and of course dan and justin and i are competing to be the coolest so that the girls will like us. during a lull in conversation, when nobody around is really talking, dan turns to me and says, loudly, \u0026ldquo;jon, how would you describe what we did last night?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e","title":"slap that beast's butt!"},{"content":"the trick is not to appear like you enjoy your own joke too much. even though you know it\u0026rsquo;s freakin hilarious. that\u0026rsquo;s just a little wisdom from on high via the oracle of anne lamott.\nit was a long week, but good. i\u0026rsquo;m going to end up taking all the classes i signed up for.\non friday i played at stanford\u0026rsquo;s art affair. it was quite a big production this year: two big stages, one open-air and one in a tent. every artist only had 15 minutes to play, there were so many performers. i played in the tent stage at 4:25, after hanging around and listening to friends and other random people play their sets.\nmaybe this is bad, but i\u0026rsquo;ll be honest: i don\u0026rsquo;t like most of the music we have at stanford. i love the fact that we have music, and i\u0026rsquo;m always supportive of people playing at art affair, or the coho, or whatever. but i don\u0026rsquo;t like the music. there are exceptions\u0026ndash;i have some friends that play occasionally, and i think they have talent and potential (i include myself in this group since i\u0026rsquo;m the arbiter of my own opinions). but anyway, that\u0026rsquo;s my opinion.\ni felt my show went well\u0026ndash;i played solitary spaces (with a cool new surprise intro simply because the song is my most repetitive and overplayed), a pixelated life, and my new song rainfall: monologue. as i was playing some people came in from outside the tent to listen to me, and that made me feel pretty cool. more importantly, tons of my friends came out to see me, and gave support, which always makes me feel like a rockstar.\ni hung around art affair for the rest of the evening (after an interesting time where i was locked out of my room) and soaked in the atmosphere, which was very \u0026hellip; joyful\u0026hellip; and a little reminiscent of a music fest. i sat around and talked to friends and just hung out, which i haven\u0026rsquo;t really been in the habit of doing at stanford. it was a nice change, and i plan on hanging out with friends much more often.\ni stayed up late playing empire earth with eric, kicking some assyrian ass (that\u0026rsquo;s a joke). empire earth\u0026rsquo;s a computer game where you control lots of little fighting guys and make buildings and walls and stuff, and try to destroy the bad guy. and we destroyed him with elephants and archers and catapults and lots of horseys.\nsaturday dan and i woke up about midday, ate, and then drove up to castle rock. it\u0026rsquo;s about an hour drive. we spent the entire day climbing rock routes in a place known as the underworld in castle rock state park. first we set up an anchor on a slopey 5.8 route. climbing routes are rated 5.1-5.14c, i think. dan\u0026rsquo;s a climbing master, so he did it really fast, and i followed a little slower. then we met up with some other climbers who were working on a rock called \u0026rsquo;the gods\u0026rsquo;. there i cranked out my first 5.10a and 5.10b. it felt really good to know that i\u0026rsquo;d improved since the last time i was out there.\nif you only go to climbing gyms or fake walls, you never really get the feel of real rock underneath your hands. it\u0026rsquo;s completely different. at first i thought i would never like it. i thought i would prefer the certainty of the wall\u0026ndash;easily defined holds on a rational grid of bolt holes. but i found that i really liked the feel of the rock, the various holds you could get in a few square inches, and the way the shoes can stick to virtually anything.\non our way back from castle rock we passed REI, so we stopped and i succumbed to the trend and bought one of those indestructible nalgene water bottles. i will now fit in if i ever go up to an oregon college campus.\ndan and i thought it would be a good idea to hang out with some girls saturday night, since we\u0026rsquo;d never really done that here. sadly, we were at a complete loss of who we could even hang out with (we\u0026rsquo;re pretty new at it, you see). eventually we called serena and shannon, friends from cornerstone. shannon was gone but serena came over and we hung out in our room and talked and played guitar and spilled popcorn over the floor and made fun of www.getsigned.com. and we didn\u0026rsquo;t watch a movie \u0026ndash; a rarity among college students, i\u0026rsquo;m sure. all in all, a fun if at-times-weird night.\ntoday i slept through church due to the time change and tiredness, then spent all afternoon recording pedro the lion covers. i\u0026rsquo;m working on a 5-song pedro the lion cover cd. i recorded and mixed and mastered three of the songs today, which was quite phenomenal, since it\u0026rsquo;s a lot of work. i\u0026rsquo;ll put the mp3s up here sooner or later for download.\nnow i\u0026rsquo;m on my way to a passover seder that cornerstone is having\u0026hellip;.if you\u0026rsquo;re paying attention you\u0026rsquo;ll notice that this will be my second one of the year. strange, yes, but free food is good, and there\u0026rsquo;s no reason i can\u0026rsquo;t take some more time to think about the meaning of passover and all that.\ni just hope the upcoming week doesn\u0026rsquo;t suck! i forgot to do all my homework this weekend. uh oh.\nvirtual disc on spin: when we were small | rosie thomas\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/art-affair-etc/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe trick is not to appear like you enjoy your own joke too much. even though you know it\u0026rsquo;s freakin hilarious. that\u0026rsquo;s just a little wisdom from on high via the oracle of anne lamott.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eit was a long week, but good. i\u0026rsquo;m going to end up taking all the classes i signed up for.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eon friday i played at stanford\u0026rsquo;s art affair. it was quite a big production this year: two big stages, one open-air and one in a tent. every artist only had 15 minutes to play, there were so many performers. i played in the tent stage at 4:25, after hanging around and listening to friends and other random people play their sets.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"art affair etc"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;m back. spring quarter, watch yourself.\none day of classes is done. a billion more to go. i think i\u0026rsquo;ll like them\u0026ndash;the classes\u0026ndash;they seem fun. especially my conversational spanish class. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to regain some lost skills in that area.\ni\u0026rsquo;m a little too lazy to give the play-by-play for the day, so we\u0026rsquo;ll just say that it was a day of errands. running here and there, buying this, paying off that bill, going to this class, etc\u0026hellip;crusade was switched to wednesday, so we had that tonight, followed by root beer floats and beav\u0026rsquo;s apartment. now i\u0026rsquo;m sitting at with my desk, wondering what to do for the rest of the night. here are the options:\ntry and do some make up work for my class tomorrow (i missed the first day yesterday)\nplay empire earth with eric\nstart reading \u0026lsquo;a brief history of time\u0026rsquo; which i got tonight.\nsleep\n(1) \u0026amp; (4) are probably the wisest, but i don\u0026rsquo;t even know how to do (1), and (4) is wussy. i know what i\u0026rsquo;ll do\u0026ndash;all of them. no reason i can\u0026rsquo;t.\ntake a look at my dates list\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s pretty full! didn\u0026rsquo;t realize spring quarter would be so busy.\nalso take a look at my CD wishlist. you can feel free to get me those CDs at any time.\nvirtual disc on spin: relocation | plankeye\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/swingin/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m back. spring quarter, watch yourself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eone day of classes is done. a billion more to go. i think i\u0026rsquo;ll like them\u0026ndash;the classes\u0026ndash;they seem fun. especially my conversational spanish class. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait to regain some lost skills in that area.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m a little too lazy to give the play-by-play for the day, so we\u0026rsquo;ll just say that it was a day of errands. running here and there, buying this, paying off that bill, going to this class, etc\u0026hellip;crusade was switched to wednesday, so we had that tonight, followed by root beer floats and beav\u0026rsquo;s apartment. now i\u0026rsquo;m sitting at with my desk, wondering what to do for the rest of the night. here are the options:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"swingin"},{"content":"spring break part V: 3.31.2002 - 4.1.2002\nTHE LAST AND FINAL EPISODE.\n(the continuation of part IV)\nthough it was painful, i did get up in time for church on sunday. my grandma was in town, as you know, and my aunt linda (my dad\u0026rsquo;s sister) and her new fiance had driven up from west palm the day before. so with the three of them my family went to the 9:30am service. the message was fantastic\u0026ndash;it was the first time i\u0026rsquo;d heard a pastor attempt an apologetic approach to an easter sermon that a) made any sense and b) didn\u0026rsquo;t leave my philosophical nature unsatisfied or questioning or accusing. my level of respect for my pastor rose accordingly.\nthen the traditions: half an hour (read: an eternity) of trying to take family pictures in our nice clothes. in florida, this just means pants other than jeans and a shirt with some kind of buttons on it. after pictures, lunch: the toast to the pre-newlyweds, the toast to our grandmother, the toast to family, and the toast to god for uncountably many blessings. then the roast beast, marvelously prepared, with the appropriate side entrees, followed by key lime pie. we had a good lunch, and a long lunch, since it was family time and nobody was rushing anywhere.\nafter the meal and the talking, we went our separate ways for the evening. i dubbed lord of the rings from divx to vhs for my family. i cleaned pine needles out of the gutter. i got a call from emily. it was shortly after the extended family had left for home in west palm, and shortly before the pine needles. talking to her was both good and bad\u0026ndash;or should i say, both good and unpleasant. good because i know it\u0026rsquo;s good to keep communication open and in place. unpleasant because it\u0026rsquo;s the first time we\u0026rsquo;ve really talked since breaking up a few days ago, and she\u0026rsquo;s still hurt by my decision, and i\u0026rsquo;m not sensitive or wise enough to know what to say or how to act. a recipe for tension and awkwardness, certainly. but a step in the direction of keeping a friendship, more importantly.\ni went running with david again. this time we did 2.5 miles in about 16.5 minutes. that\u0026rsquo;s averaging about a 6:50 mile\u0026ndash;and for me, running even one mile under 7:00 is great! i\u0026rsquo;m just hoping that i\u0026rsquo;ll keep up running two or three times a week at school. i can see it being really good for me in both the short and long runs.\ni ended the evening watching \u0026rsquo;the saint\u0026rsquo;, the one with val kilmer, with my family. it\u0026rsquo;s a pretty good movie.\ni fell out of bed before noon today, which was quite nice. i did some work on the computer, took a shower, and ate breakfast before going to pick up my sister from school at 2:10. they start school at 7:45 and get out at 2:10. can you believe that? i remember high school as being from 7:50-2:50. they have 35 minutes less per day than i did! if you go to school 180 days out of the year, that\u0026rsquo;s 6300 minutes!! equals 105 hours equals 4.4 days! it\u0026rsquo;s like an extra spring break. no fair. anyway i took rach to panera to hang out for a bit, since i didn\u0026rsquo;t get to see her too much when i was home. mark was working and he hooked us up with some extra free food, cool right. so rachel and i talked a bit, then went to target to take back my luggage, which had broken on the trip to england. they wouldn\u0026rsquo;t let me, but i reasoned with the manager and finally they let me just take a new set home.\ni got home between 4 and 5 and started working on a poster design for the dr. henry schaefer lecture that campus crusade at stanford is sponsoring. he\u0026rsquo;s a world-renowned quantum chemist sort of guy, apparently very famous and even a nobel prize nominee. he will talk about stephen hawking and the big bang and god: sciency stuff. i\u0026rsquo;m definitely looking forward to it. i drafted up a couple of poster designs and sent them off to be reviewed. i also worked on the blog design a bit, and did a little javascript programming to produce a random image which appears to the right. i got 45 pictures taken mostly by myself, and a few friends, to form a pool from which one is randomly selected every time someone views the page. it was fun to figure out, and i was proud of myself for actually making the script on my own instead of just copying someone else\u0026rsquo;s (the idea of course isn\u0026rsquo;t novel). hopefully it\u0026rsquo;ll make it a bit more interesting to visit, as well!\nthen dave and i got mark from his apartment and he drove us to aiguille, the climbing gym. we were there from about 7-10pm again. the second time around was slightly better than the first\u0026ndash;i was able to re-nail all the routes i\u0026rsquo;d gotten previously, and even finish a few more difficult ones. i noticed that the style of routes that they tended to set up was quite different from the ones that they have at the stanford gym. can\u0026rsquo;t quite put my finger on a reason, but they felt different. the design of the holds themselves was not the same, for one thing.\non the way back, about 10:20pm, mark got word from his roommates via my brother\u0026rsquo;s cell that some girl friends of theirs had played a prank on them and stuck oreo cookies to their doors, along with large men\u0026rsquo;s underwear and powdered sugar which they leaf-blowed under doors and into rooms (incidentally, this set off the fire alarm). needless to say, mark and his roommates were suitably pissed. he vowed that he would get them back, and so asked me if i could help plan something.\ni would rarely play a prank on someone, but if i am tricked or toilet papered or my property is messed up in any way, i\u0026rsquo;m more than willing to hit back harder. i felt this vicariously through mark, so i was happy to help. the girls were still at the apartment hanging out (thinking that they\u0026rsquo;d had the last trick, and one of them was mark\u0026rsquo;s roommate\u0026rsquo;s girlfriend). knowing this, we came up with the idea of going to the visitor parking lot, jacking up the girls\u0026rsquo; cars, and taking one tire from each and hiding them. then we\u0026rsquo;d make them clean up the oreo/sugar mess they\u0026rsquo;d made before getting their tires back. as a little whipped cream, we\u0026rsquo;d get those big round pool floaty things and put them as mock tires in the place of the old ones.\nso we stopped at publix and winn dixie to look for the necessary gear. publix was closed and winn dixie didn\u0026rsquo;t have pool flotation devices. oh well, so we wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have fake tires\u0026ndash;the plan would still work. we went to the apartment complex and found their cars in the visitor lot. using a jack we lifted one car up a bit, and tried to take off the hubcap. and the stupid thing wouldn\u0026rsquo;t come off\u0026ndash;no matter how hard we pulled and no matter what we hit, it didn\u0026rsquo;t come off. it was a very weird hubcap. no matter, we thought, there\u0026rsquo;s still one car left. so we moved to the next vehicle, and, lo and behold, mark\u0026rsquo;s tire wrench was the wrong size for the lugnuts. two strikes and we were out.\nuntil i came up with another idea\u0026ndash;the girls were still in the apartment, right? like girls, they would never keep keys or change or anything in pockets, close at hand. no, things like keys would be in purses or bags, which would be lying around the apartment, or on the table or something. i figured we could palm their keys as long as their attention was sufficiently diverted. then dave and i would say we had to go, and mark would come out with us to say goodbye. we\u0026rsquo;d bid the ladies and mark\u0026rsquo;s roommates adieu, and be off to the visitor lot and the girls\u0026rsquo; cars. we could move them to some other obscure place in the lot where the girls would never look, and, to be extra crafty, pop open the hoods and take one of the battery leads off. if you didn\u0026rsquo;t guess, this would render the cars safely (and easily fixably) inoperable and unstartable.\nso, the girls would come out, have half a heart attack when they saw that their cars were missing, run frantically around until they spotted a glimmer of a blue shine from the other end of the lot, and exult in the discovery of their \u0026lsquo;stolen\u0026rsquo; vehicles! wondering why/how they were moved, but thankful that they were found at least, they would take their keys (which mark upon returning would have reinserted stealthily into their purses) and try to start the cars. but no, they would only hear a sputter and maybe a whine as nothing happened. and then (at least this is one way we envisioned it) mark et al would tell them the price for fixing the cars\u0026ndash;cleaning up the mess they\u0026rsquo;d made of their apartment! the girls would have no choice but to bow before the superiority of the guys\u0026rsquo; april fools\u0026rsquo; counter-prank. muhahaha.\na grand scheme, and everything went according to plan, though diverting their attention and sorting through purses quietly and invisibly while the girls were in the same room proved to be a challenge. one which we overcame, and so out to the parking lot. we moved the cars easily enough, lifted the hood, and\u0026hellip;crap. the leads are connected with nuts, and all we have are our bare hands. how could we possibly get the battery unhooked? i came up with the idea of calling dave, one of mark\u0026rsquo;s roommates, and giving him the following story: our car was having trouble and could he possibly bring out a toolbox so that we could bang around a bit and maybe get it started? dave was in on it, obviously, but the story worked great for explaining to the girls why he was walking out the door at 12am with a toolbox. with the required tools, we unhooked the batteries, tested to see that the cars really didn\u0026rsquo;t work, shut the hoods, and gave the keys to mark. dave and i dropped dave and mark back off at the apartment for the last part of the mission, and wished them good luck.\nat this point i can only speculate as to how exactly the whole thing turned out, and if it worked exactly as planned. i\u0026rsquo;m at home now and it\u0026rsquo;s been an hour and a half. the fireworks, if there were any, have already happened.\nanyway, it was a fun little diversion, and an interesting capstone to the break. in a little over 12 hours (most of which will be sleep, of course) i\u0026rsquo;ll be going to the airport for the flight to LAX, and then a quick hop up to SJC. hopefully someone will be able to pick me up. if you\u0026rsquo;d like to volunteer, feel free to e-mail me and let me know!\ni don\u0026rsquo;t know if i\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to school, but ready or not, it\u0026rsquo;s starting again, so i\u0026rsquo;d better get prepared. thank you god for a week off, even if it was more interesting than i really wanted it to be, and maybe a little bit less relaxing. and i pray this next quarter will be better than the last!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/04/spring-break-v/","summary":"\u003cp\u003espring break part V: 3.31.2002 - 4.1.2002\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTHE LAST AND FINAL EPISODE.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(the continuation of part IV)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethough it was painful, i did get up in time for church on sunday. my grandma was in town, as you know, and my aunt linda (my dad\u0026rsquo;s sister) and her new fiance had driven up from west palm the day before. so with the three of them my family went to the 9:30am service. the message was fantastic\u0026ndash;it was the first time i\u0026rsquo;d heard a pastor attempt an apologetic approach to an easter sermon that a) made any sense and b) didn\u0026rsquo;t leave my philosophical nature unsatisfied or questioning or accusing. my level of respect for my pastor rose accordingly.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break V"},{"content":"spring break part IV: 3.26.2002 - 3.30.2002\n(the continuation of part III)\nthe next few days had that peculiar quality some days have \u0026ndash; agonizingly slow and boring and yet somehow able to fly by quickly. on tuesday i worked 8-5 at the wycliffe bible translators headquarters, which is where my parents work. i was a temporary employee of the MIS (some abstruse abbreviation for \u0026ldquo;all things technological\u0026rdquo;) department. i ran around the office building setting up computers, fixing problems, answering the computer help desk phone (\u0026ldquo;did you reboot?\u0026hellip;.oh..it works now?\u0026hellip;good\u0026hellip;you\u0026rsquo;re welcome\u0026hellip;.bye\u0026rdquo;), and writing blog entries.\nit wasn\u0026rsquo;t the most exciting job, but it was more exciting than a host of other jobs i could have had, and it was perfect for a three-day stint.\nthat day after work our family celebrated passover. we had a quasi-authentic passover seder at our house, with a few other families (and mark) in attendance. i say quasi because while we followed the general format of the jewish passover, it was very christian, and recognized jesus as the messiah who has already come. so we had no pretentions of being jewish, but felt that it was a good way to commemorate and remember god\u0026rsquo;s goodness to his people, and see how the promises of the passover were fulfilled in christ.\nlater on dave and i watched the new planet of the apes. i hadn\u0026rsquo;t ever seen the original or heard anything about the movie, so it was kind of a shock to see that the whole movie was actually part of a propagandic agenda. it was fun to keep a tally of all the holes in the analogy. in the end i decided that the story related so little to the reverse scenario it was trying to caricature that the film was what we call in philosophy a \u0026lsquo;straw man\u0026rsquo; argument. it was fun to watch apes fly around though.\nthe next day i was up before 7am again (i hate day jobs), and was at work until 5. i hung around the house that night. i think maybe i even took a nap. sweet. i ended up just sitting in the hot tub late into the evening, doing some \u0026ldquo;light reading\u0026rdquo; (a not-for-school philosophy book). my mom was an angel and showed me how to make a good smoothie to drink in the spa. eventually my dad and my brother even joined me, and we shared a cohiba, a nice cuban cigar my dad had. i think i don\u0026rsquo;t remember anything after that because i\u0026rsquo;d reached that point of relaxation where even my membranes (the things in your head that remember stuff) were too relaxed to do anything.\ni was half an hour late to work on thursday because of traffic. my boss didn\u0026rsquo;t seem to care too much. last day for me, after all. a guy named shawn peterson, who\u0026rsquo;s the youth pastor at my church came to have lunch with me at the office. he wanted to see the new building, and talk to me about maybe doing some work with the youth group during the summer. he had some pretty exciting ideas about how i could get involved and help the high school kids grow, through worship and even some philosophical [apologetic] teaching/training. i feel like that would be a pretty fun thing to do, on top of being a good focus for extra time and energy.\nafter work i felt like i hadn\u0026rsquo;t done anything all day, so i went running. i did 2 miles in about 17 minutes. which isn\u0026rsquo;t bad, but not great compared to a lot of my friends. i think my roommate could run 4 miles in that amount of time. then dave and i went over to mark\u0026rsquo;s apartment and sat around and did nothing. mark\u0026rsquo;s roommate dave ahrens had a cs problem he wanted help on, but all the ways i could think of to do it involved boolean functions or pointers, neither of which he knew anything about. so i told him good luck and let him be.then mark fell asleep and dave (my brother this time) watched rush hour 2. it wasn\u0026rsquo;t horrible.\nfriday, being good friday, i had off work. i woke up late, bummed around a bit, then went shopping. first i went to panera for lunch, and ran into mark, who i was hoping could hook me up with free food. his manager was right there so he couldn\u0026rsquo;t, but he gave me a free drink. then i ran into a girl who works for my mom, that i went to honduras with last summer on a mission trip. she invited me to eat with her and her friend, and we had a nice lunch talking almost entirely in spanish. it felt good to use some of those spanish muscles that have been a little atrophied.\ni got some random junk at target, some sandals at a shoe place, and a dvd for my dad at best buy. i deposited some checks at the bank, and then i was home. dave and i went running together, and did 2.5 miles in 17.5 minutes. i had improved since the previous day, and i felt good about that.\nfriday night was sweet\u0026ndash;dave and rach and i called a bunch of friends over to have a time of worship. this is something we tend to do when a lot of the college folk are back in town, and it\u0026rsquo;s always really good. it was supposed to start at 9, so of course everyone showed up around 11, and we got started. i played and sang my heart out to god until 2 am. jason killingsworth played along. everyone sang, or prayed, or walked around, or just sat there, or even fell asleep. the last hour or so was just jason and nyffy and i, with a couple people who had fallen asleep on the couches and were dreaming peacefully. now that\u0026rsquo;s what i call awesome \u0026ndash; worshiping to the point of exhaustion and sleep.\nsaturday we went to the beach. me, dave, jordan peterson, nate akers, hannah roberts \u0026amp; family, and hannah\u0026rsquo;s friend thais, who\u0026rsquo;s from brazil.\ni\u0026rsquo;ll have you know, i love the beach. i love the sand, the sun (or the clouds or rain, whichever is there), the wind, the sound of the water, the bass of the surf in my stomach. oddly enough i don\u0026rsquo;t like being in the water very much\u0026ndash;the undulating and the salt water which i inevitably drink too much of make me sick. but i love the beach.\nwe had a great time sitting around, boogie-boarding, playing sand soccer, and whatever else. and we enjoyed nice conversation on the car rides to and fro\u0026ndash;most of which centered around cultural discussions with thais, since it\u0026rsquo;s not every day you get to hang out with someone who\u0026rsquo;s from another country. well, i suppose it happens all the time at stanford, but you know what i mean.\nwe drove 80mph with the windows down, the sun crashing through the windshield, making us all look cool, as if we were in a movie. it was good for my soul.\neveryone got home more or less at 6. i wandered around the house for a bit, then prepared for \u0026ldquo;masculinity in togetherness\u0026ndash;togetherness in masculinity\u0026rdquo; night. (that\u0026rsquo;s just the name i made up for it now, it\u0026rsquo;s not like it was premeditated or anything. geez). dave and i drove to pick up chris. then all three of us drove to albertsons to pick up some nice stogies. we went to the killingsworth\u0026rsquo;s. jason was there, and so was trey. other dudes showed up and left as the night wore on. we smoked cloves, stogies, pipes, and [that\u0026rsquo;s really it but i\u0026rsquo;m going to add this for effect and for samuel] any other carcinogen-bearing object that existed, exists, or will exist. we tried to sit in their hot tub but there was no propane. so we gathered around and let our testosterone carry us on, soothing tired feet and healing mud-stained hearts.\nwe watched bottle rocket. it was an excellent movie, and on my \u0026ldquo;movies to see to be cool\u0026rdquo; list. double bonus.\nand that was it. jason started the drive to gainesville, and dave and i wearily drove home, daring ourselves to wake up in the requisite 6 hours for easter sunday church.\nfor me, awake in the midnight watch hours, it already was easter. i stood in the shower and thanked god that jesus did not rot in the grave, but was made alive. and i thanked god for the promise that i am, with jesus, an heir to that life. happy easter.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/spring-break-iv/","summary":"\u003cp\u003espring break part IV: 3.26.2002 - 3.30.2002\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(the continuation of part III)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe next few days had that peculiar quality some days have \u0026ndash; agonizingly slow and boring and yet somehow able to fly by quickly. on tuesday i worked 8-5 at the wycliffe bible translators headquarters, which is where my parents work. i was a temporary employee of the MIS (some abstruse abbreviation for \u0026ldquo;all things technological\u0026rdquo;) department. i ran around the office building setting up computers, fixing problems, answering the computer help desk phone (\u0026ldquo;did you reboot?\u0026hellip;.oh..it works now?\u0026hellip;good\u0026hellip;you\u0026rsquo;re welcome\u0026hellip;.bye\u0026rdquo;), and writing blog entries.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break IV"},{"content":"spring break part III: 3.23.2002 7:30pm - 3.25.2002 11:59pm\n(the continuation of part II)\nthe drive home from gainesville was nice and easy\u0026ndash;i just stopped once for gas on the turnpike. i made it home before 10. my parents and sister and grandma (who\u0026rsquo;s in town for a few weeks) were already winding down and getting ready for bed, but my body was so confused by the highly erratic sleep schedule i\u0026rsquo;d been leading it on, that i wasn\u0026rsquo;t tired. i heated up some cold leftover dinner and sat down to watch a movie brainlessly. i watched \u0026rsquo;the last castle\u0026rsquo;, which, while not spectacularly philosophical or artistic, was fun and had that cool ingenuity-and-trickiness-in-planning-for-fighting aspect.\nsooner or later i stumbled into my bed, and got up at 8. the family went out to breakfast at toojay\u0026rsquo;s for some together time before church. mostly we just talked about colleges (david and rachel are graduating soon), cars, and plans for the future. the hostess kept staring at me, and it was a little uncomfortable. i couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell whether it was a \u0026ldquo;you\u0026rsquo;re cute\u0026rdquo; stare or a \u0026ldquo;you\u0026rsquo;re funny looking\u0026rdquo; stare. but we got out soon and made our way to church. our pastor\u0026rsquo;s a pretty awesome guy\u0026ndash;smart, interesting to listen to, has solid and engaging perspectives\u0026hellip;so i\u0026rsquo;d say that it\u0026rsquo;s only because i was falling asleep due to heat and tiredness that i forgot what the sermon was.\ndave and i drove home in the vette and went immediately to bed. more naps to screw with my system. my dad woke me up around 3 and informed me that i needed to wash the jeep, since it had gotten dirty on the trip to gainesville. i didn\u0026rsquo;t argue too much about it, which was a rarity. emily had called so i called her back and we decided that we should talk the next day, since we hadn\u0026rsquo;t for a while, and since i had a lot of stuff on my mind. so i washed the jeep, then mark rogers came over and dave and i ate a quick dinner and hopped in mark\u0026rsquo;s car. we drove downtown to \u0026ldquo;the social\u0026rdquo;, formerly \u0026ldquo;the sapphire\u0026rdquo;, formerly \u0026ldquo;the sapphire supper club\u0026rdquo;. doors opened there at 6 for a denison marrs / twothirtyeight show. we got in relatively near to the front and grabbed one of the few tables. the show started punctually (another rarity) at 7 with the opening act\u0026ndash;sound the alarm. all right, a little like my hotel year\u0026hellip;too pop punk to be enjoyable for long.\ni\u0026rsquo;d brought my minidisc player and new sony ecm-ms957 mic to try and record the show, and see if i could get a decent recording at all. i tested it out on sound the alarm, and, satisfied, i kept everything hidden nicely in my bag which was sitting (nonchalantly) half-open on the table. 238 was on next, and put on a very tight show with super-clean guitarwork and some tricky lead guitar duets. denison marrs rocked the house with their hard/space/emo/80s set, and once again impressed me very much.\nwe were out of the club and in the car by 9pm\u0026ndash;virtually unheard of for a show. must be new management at the social. i listened to the recording in the car on the way back, and was blown away by the quality\u0026ndash;it sounded better than it did live! mostly because live, my ears were ringing so much that it was hard to distinguish different sounds. mark dropped dave and i off at our house, and i spent the rest of the night e-mailing and blogging. i don\u0026rsquo;t remember when i finally went to bed.\nbut i remember when i woke up\u0026ndash;noon, 3.25. or maybe it was 1. i ate breakfast, showered, and did my daily devotions. i prayed about my phone call to emily, because i didn\u0026rsquo;t know what would happen. i knew i had to tell her what i\u0026rsquo;d been thinking about our relationship, and what the posse and i had discussed, and i knew i had to trust that god would let us make the right decision. i just prayed that whatever it was, it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be just one of us making the decision.\ni called her around two. and everything fell out. everything that i\u0026rsquo;d been thinking about, praying about, wondering about, confused about\u0026ndash;it all fell in a gnarled mess from my mouth, between nose-blowings (i was still sick, remember) and involuntary silences wherein i tried not to cry. i told her where i thought we were, where i thought god had led us, and why i thought it couldn\u0026rsquo;t continue in the way it had been. then i did cry, and i cried a lot. for memories and deflated hopes and an unknown future. also for relief\u0026ndash;for the doing of something that had been a long time in coming, but invisibly and painfully so. she sat there and wondered why she\u0026rsquo;d ever trusted me with her feelings, her deep thoughts, and her heart. even though i know she could see it coming. and i\u0026rsquo;d given her ample opportunity to get out, but she\u0026rsquo;d stuck by me faithfully and loyally. now she wishes she hadn\u0026rsquo;t.\ni felt like the lowliest jerk in the world, like i\u0026rsquo;d just stabbed my best friend in the back. we both cried and she said things, and i took them and didn\u0026rsquo;t deny them, and hoped that we could stay friends. i think we can. then i prayed for us, and thanked god for the relationship that we had shared, and the encouragement and love that was there. and i prayed that we could still have that without the romantic aspect of the relationship. then we hung up, and i prayed for my friend, because i knew she was hurt.\n11 months was a long time. i learned a lot, messed up a lot, and hopefully did some good things every once in a while. and now it\u0026rsquo;s over. but i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have traded it for anything else! it\u0026rsquo;s sad, but in a way i get excited about the sudden unknown\u0026ndash;who knows where god will lead us now. wherever it is, i\u0026rsquo;m sure it will rock. and emily, thank you.\ni didn\u0026rsquo;t have too much time to think about it then, though, because i had to detail the inside of my grandma\u0026rsquo;s car in 3 hours. this includes: vacuuming carpets, spraying carpets, scrubbing carpets/mats, letting them dry, vacuuming them again, vacuuming seats, washing seats, cleaning seats, leather-sealing seats, washing vinyl, cleaning vinyl, armor-all sealing vinyl, and washing windows. i had to do it because i\u0026rsquo;d promised to do it that day, and i\u0026rsquo;d also promised to go rock climbing with dave at 6. so i worked fast, and hard, and did a good job (another rarity for me where cleaning cars is concerned). but i was getting paid, so i obviously had some incentive.\ni finished the car, inhaled some dinner, and hopped in the vette with dave. we drove half an hour northwest to longwood, where aiguille, orlando\u0026rsquo;s climbing gym, is located. it\u0026rsquo;s a sweet gym, huge, with lots of routes. as we discovered, most of the routes are really hard. apparently they\u0026rsquo;d just had a national bouldering competition or something, so there weren\u0026rsquo;t a lot of easy problems to set. we took a few hours, though, and worked on some stuff that we thought we could handle, and it was a lot of fun. i\u0026rsquo;m glad i brought my climbing gear home.\nthe gym closed at 10 and we drove home. i got to bed reasonably early (since i was scheduled to work 8-5 the next day at my parents\u0026rsquo; office) but couldn\u0026rsquo;t go to sleep. maybe it was because i\u0026rsquo;d slept so late, or maybe my mind just wouldn\u0026rsquo;t stop thinking about my conversation with emily, and the huge change that it had made in my life.\nwe\u0026rsquo;ll see where i go from there.\nto be continued\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/spring-break-iii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003espring break part III: 3.23.2002 7:30pm - 3.25.2002 11:59pm\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(the continuation of part II)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethe drive home from gainesville was nice and easy\u0026ndash;i just stopped once for gas on the turnpike. i made it home before 10. my parents and sister and grandma (who\u0026rsquo;s in town for a few weeks) were already winding down and getting ready for bed, but my body was so confused by the highly erratic sleep schedule i\u0026rsquo;d been leading it on, that i wasn\u0026rsquo;t tired. i heated up some cold leftover dinner and sat down to watch a movie brainlessly. i watched \u0026rsquo;the last castle\u0026rsquo;, which, while not spectacularly philosophical or artistic, was fun and had that cool ingenuity-and-trickiness-in-planning-for-fighting aspect.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break III"},{"content":"spring break part II: 3.21.2002 7pm - 3.23.2002 7pm\n(the continuation of part I)\nwe left the story as i was beginning the drive to gainesville. man, i flew. normally a two-hour drive, i made it in just under 1:40. 84mph while eating tacos. i got to josh\u0026rsquo;s apartment a little before 9, and he was there, which was nice. we got back in my car and drove to UF to go to the crusade meeting. arriving over half an hour late, we casually walked in and sat in the back as the speaker taught. the message was standard\u0026ndash;not too phenomenal\u0026ndash;but the time of worship was real and sweet. and by sweet i mean totally awesome. by that time nate akers had come in too, even later than us, so it was good to have him there as well. we hung out after the meeting until late, probably 10:15 or so. then nate and josh and i went back to josh\u0026rsquo;s apartment to hang out. jason, josh\u0026rsquo;s brother, was back, and it was good to see him too. we sat in their room and played guitar for what seemed like hours.\nthen chris nyffeler and his girlfriend anne showed up, to my delight. more hang out time. josh\u0026rsquo;s girlfriend meghan came over too, rounding it off and completing the rocking party which we then had. but, rock wasn\u0026rsquo;t enough\u0026ndash;we needed food. anne had to go home, but the rest of us sans jason (who was flirting with a girl on IM and so could not come) piled in my jeep and we were off. we stopped at checkers for food, and then\u0026ndash;stogies. chris and i bought a punch (i.e. puncharello) cigar and some cloves to share, and josh and nate did the same. we dropped meghan off at her dorm, and then back to the apartment patio for stogie night.\nstogie night was fantastically magical. surrounded by the quality guys that i was, the pleasant odor of burning leaf, and the sweet sounds of wise and sober words was like water to my thirsty soul. now i will quote from chris\u0026rsquo; blog, because i feel it\u0026rsquo;s very accurate: \u0026ldquo;with stogies we figure out the world. and our world is girls.\u0026rdquo;\nand this is exactly what we did. we talked and discussed and compared and felt and listened and understood. until 5am. then i fell asleep, glad in the company of brothers.\ni awoke shortly after noon to a very weird comedy central show on tv. and to the blessed question, \u0026ldquo;do you want to go eat?\u0026rdquo;. josh, chris, paul copenhaver (who had come over), and i went to the gainesville alehouse. this is a standard hangout place for UF folks, but it was my first time there. more importantly, i lost my big red virginity, as josh and i shared one of the big spicy-chicken-and-ranch sandwiches. more than the sandwich, though, josh and i share the love of the sandwich, first expressed with the Chili\u0026rsquo;s chicken and ranch, and now in the big red. a beautiful time. we sat out on the patio and lit up some cloves after eating breakfast and dessert. paul and i argued about whether the simpson\u0026rsquo;s was a symbol of american greatness or not. we both agreed that if it was, america would be a sad place.\nit was a beautiful day.\nback to the apartment, and we donned swimsuits and went to the pool at In the Pines (the apartment complex). i read the bible and tried to get a tan on my chest and back, and dreamed about when it would be that sunny and gorgeous at stanford.\nthen it was time to go\u0026ndash;josh, chris, and nate had a bible study leaders\u0026rsquo; retreat to go to at a camp half an hour east, with crusade. i decided to tag along, hoping that the people who were running it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind that i didn\u0026rsquo;t actually go to UF. we picked up mike graham on the way, loaded our bellies with crappy mcdonalds fakeness, and shouted along with various tunes on chris\u0026rsquo; compilation minidisc as we drove.\nwe got to the place, called something i\u0026rsquo;m now forgetting, and i met a good number of people before the retreat actually got underway. that night the speakers just gave a little background, and reasonings and motivations behind having bible discussion groups and whatnot. it went until about 10, and then everyone just hung out and played cards. i played euchre, and my partner lana and i lost badly to nate and a girl named kelly. sooner or later everyone drifted out, to the cabins where we were supposed to stay.\nhowever, josh, chris, nate, and i didn\u0026rsquo;t leave\u0026ndash;we hadn\u0026rsquo;t brought sleeping bags or pillows or anything, so we decided to just camp out in the meeting room. nate and chris settled down to talk, and josh and i took a walk to a basketball court, where we sat and talked and puffed on cheap cigars. well, mostly i talked. about emily, and all the stuff i\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about her. see, josh had fallen asleep on stogie night so he hadn\u0026rsquo;t heard a lot of what we had been talking about concerning our girls.\nwe got back to the meeting room (the \u0026ldquo;fireside hall\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;i bet every camp in the world has a \u0026ldquo;fireside hall\u0026rdquo;) and nate and chris were still awake. by this time it was at least 2am. and so we decided to make a fort. a secret fort, with battle plans and codenames and guns and mines and booby traps and barracks and swords. and smokestacks and food carts and pianos for scoring chicks. we made the fort. we played our parts as mr. hobble the disabled guard, junior mint, the ninja plumber, and falcor the librarian. we slept in the fort. and we froze our butts off, not realizing that the AC was on and all we had to do was turn it off.\nwe woke up at 7, tired and cold, and snuck into this place where there were lots of highschoolers, and stole hot chocolate from them. then the crusade folks came back for the day\u0026rsquo;s sessions, confused and a little bewildered by our fort. the rest of the day was a little hazy, because of the fatigue and the lack of being able to concentrate, but i remember that the talks were informative and interesting. i even took a group picture with everyone, and i\u0026rsquo;m sure they were like, \u0026ldquo;who is this guy?\u0026rdquo;\n3pm, saturday, 3.23 came slowly, but come it did, and so 5 of us piled back into my car and drove back to gainesville, rocking along to hip-hop, john mayer, and cake. we stopped at chris\u0026rsquo; dorm and watched a taped simpsons episode because we were too lethargic to do anything else. i said my goodbyes to chris and nate there, and josh and i drove back to his apartment alone. we shut the blinds in his room and fell asleep, he in his bed and i in jason\u0026rsquo;s, listening to a mandy moore cover of a switchfoot song.\ni woke up at 6:30, groggy and hazy. i took my contacts out finally, and it felt like i was ripping my cornea off because they\u0026rsquo;d been stuck there by time, sleep, and eye boogers. josh cooked me up some nathan\u0026rsquo;s hot dogs, and then it was time to go. i had to go home, and he had a girlfriend to attend to. he hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen her in a little over a day, you remember! so i gathered my personal belongings and stumbled out to the car, trying to zone myself into a wakefulness fit for driving 2 hours. i waved goodbye to josh and left. when i made it to I-4 the clock read 7:30 and chris carabba was singing, \u0026ldquo;the moon is down, and heaven is waiting for us to find her in our sights\u0026rdquo;.\ni looked, and the moon was still there, suspended and glowing, but small and far away.\nto be continued\u0026hellip;\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/spring-break-ii/","summary":"\u003cp\u003espring break part II: 3.21.2002 7pm - 3.23.2002 7pm\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(the continuation of part I)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewe left the story as i was beginning the drive to gainesville. man, i flew. normally a two-hour drive, i made it in just under 1:40. 84mph while eating tacos. i got to josh\u0026rsquo;s apartment a little before 9, and he was there, which was nice. we got back in my car and drove to UF to go to the crusade meeting. arriving over half an hour late, we casually walked in and sat in the back as the speaker taught. the message was standard\u0026ndash;not too phenomenal\u0026ndash;but the time of worship was real and sweet. and by sweet i mean totally awesome. by that time nate akers had come in too, even later than us, so it was good to have him there as well. we hung out after the meeting until late, probably 10:15 or so. then nate and josh and i went back to josh\u0026rsquo;s apartment to hang out. jason, josh\u0026rsquo;s brother, was back, and it was good to see him too. we sat in their room and played guitar for what seemed like hours.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break II"},{"content":"spring break part I: 3.19.2002 7pm - 3.21.2002 7pm\nnot too long after my last post, i talked to emily on IM. apparently my attitude in the post was disappointing to her, because she thought i\u0026rsquo;d been doing better. i felt bad, but also defensive\u0026ndash;i didn\u0026rsquo;t think that i was leading her on, or lying, or being false in any way. it was a rough conversation, and a bad way to start a trip, but i had to leave right after for the airport. truth be told, however, i certainly can\u0026rsquo;t lay any blame on emily for anything, and especially bad conversations. i\u0026rsquo;ve given her more than my fair share of hurt in the past few months, and i admire her perseverance. also, as she poignantly told me, i really just need to \u0026ldquo;get [my] act together\u0026rdquo;. she\u0026rsquo;s no doubt sick of the wavering, the unsureness, my \u0026lsquo;weird\u0026rsquo; feelings, and whatever else. i\u0026rsquo;m sick of them too. and i wholeheartedly agreed then, and now, that i need to get my act together. thus, getting my act together is the theme of spring break. because, as emily and i both know, for me to ever make a decision about our relationship, it needs to be in a vacuum of other life doubts and problems, or i would forever wonder if it wasn\u0026rsquo;t one of them that needed to be fixed instead. we\u0026rsquo;ll find out if this is possible.\nback to the story: right on time, at 11pm, my plane left san jose for chicago. i tried to sleep, but i started feeling a little too sick, with a little too much of the runny nose to sleep comfortably. i\u0026rsquo;m sure that it was staying up all night studying for my greek final which killed my immune system, and planes are notorious for spreading sickness. anyway, we got into o\u0026rsquo;hare at 4am local time. i was tired but couldn\u0026rsquo;t go to sleep for fear of being robbed in the airport. so, i walked around zombie-like until 5am, when mcdonald\u0026rsquo;s finally opened for breakfast. dying, i ate a ham/egg/cheese bagel thinking it was completely wonderful. i still think it is\u0026ndash;those things are good.\nthen i walked to my gate and settled down to wait the 2+ hours until boarding. as it turned out, though, the plane was overbooked, and the gate agent called for volunteers who would be willing to fly on a flight 3 hours later. the reward for successfully volunteering: $500 in travel vouchers. i jumped up and made sure they put me on the list. when it was time for the plane to leave, they finalized the list and i was given the $500 voucher and a boarding pass for the flight at 10am.\ntired but more than happy to have $500 for my troubles, i changed gates and settled down to wait another 3 hours in chicago. reading and listening to music helped pass the time. once again, my flight was overbooked, and they asked for volunteers, but i was feeling sicker and more tired by the minute, so i figured that at $500 i could safely call it a day and i boarded the plane. we got into orlando at 1pm and i was met by my mom and dad, who were coming home from work early.\ni got home and unpacked my portable hard drive first thing, connecting it to my dad\u0026rsquo;s computer. then i opened up my last logic problem set, and spent a few hours finishing that (i wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to get it done before i left). i e-mailed it off to achyut and said goodbye to phil160a forever. my brother dave and i worked out for a while, then played thief (a unique sort of computer game). of course, we had to load it first. (hehe). to cap off the night, we watched the mummy returns. it was pretty stupid, but with one funny line and good effects. this brought the clock to about 1:30am, 3.21.2002. meaning, more or less, that i\u0026rsquo;d been awake for 51 of the past 58 hours. surprisingly, i wasn\u0026rsquo;t tired, and i couldn\u0026rsquo;t sleep. i\u0026rsquo;d say i knocked off around 2:30.\nthen comes the good part: i slept for 13 hours. i woke up, and was still tired, but my sony minidisc mic had come from UPS and rachel had brought it to my room, so the fun of new electronics brought me groggily to my feet. i played around with it for a while, recording my new song for kicks, and then drove to panera to see mark. i was thinking maybe he could get me some free food, since i hadn\u0026rsquo;t eaten in close to 20 hours and was hungry. he had just got off work, but i did see karen heine, which was cool. i left panera for mark\u0026rsquo;s apartment and chilled there for a while. josh killingsworth was on IM and he was talking to mark, so i said what\u0026rsquo;s up and he asked if i wanted to come up to gainesville that night. i was still feeling sick and a little tired, but i figured that was just from waking up so i said sure.\nthe clock at this point is about 5:30, and he wants me to be there by 8:30 so i can go to his campus crusade for christ meeting with him, and surprise nate and chris with being there. i call my mom and dad, they say it\u0026rsquo;s fine\u0026hellip;only i have to check the oil and all the fluids before i take the jeep. a done deal, i say, and rush back home to pack and ready the car. i pull out of my driveway at 6:30, make a stop at taco bell / pizza hut combo restaurant and order my $2.94 usual\u0026ndash;2 tacos and an order of breadsticks and sauce. gassed up, food sitting wonderfully close in the passenger seat, and my pedro minidisc winding up, i enter the 408 at 7:05pm.\nto be continued\u0026hellip;\nplaying: \u0026ldquo;options\u0026rdquo; | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/spring-break-i/","summary":"\u003cp\u003espring break part I: 3.19.2002 7pm - 3.21.2002 7pm\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enot too long after my last post, i talked to emily on IM. apparently my attitude in the post was disappointing to her, because she thought i\u0026rsquo;d been doing better. i felt bad, but also defensive\u0026ndash;i didn\u0026rsquo;t think that i was leading her on, or lying, or being false in any way. it was a rough conversation, and a bad way to start a trip, but i had to leave right after for the airport. truth be told, however, i certainly can\u0026rsquo;t lay any blame on emily for anything, and especially bad conversations. i\u0026rsquo;ve given her more than my fair share of hurt in the past few months, and i admire her perseverance. also, as she poignantly told me, i really just need to \u0026ldquo;get [my] act together\u0026rdquo;. she\u0026rsquo;s no doubt sick of the wavering, the unsureness, my \u0026lsquo;weird\u0026rsquo; feelings, and whatever else. i\u0026rsquo;m sick of them too. and i wholeheartedly agreed then, and now, that i need to get my act together. thus, getting my act together is the theme of spring break. because, as emily and i both know, for me to ever make a decision about our relationship, it needs to be in a vacuum of other life doubts and problems, or i would forever wonder if it wasn\u0026rsquo;t one of them that needed to be fixed instead. we\u0026rsquo;ll find out if this is possible.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"spring break I"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;m leaving in 2.5 hours. i don\u0026rsquo;t know what to make of this recently-past quarter. it certainly had some of the crappiest moments in recent history. i got blasted in each of my classes at some point, my inner life slowly deteriorated, my walk with god was part of my inner life, and my end of things in my relationship with emily gradually sunk into blackness.\nwhich is where i still am \u0026ndash; i have no clue what i\u0026rsquo;m supposed to be doing with her, and i don\u0026rsquo;t have the capacity to deal with the mess of feelings. sometimes [lately] i surprise myself by how angry, hateful, spiteful, and ugly i can be inside my own head. and i\u0026rsquo;m not normally that way. something\u0026rsquo;s obviously wrong, but i don\u0026rsquo;t know what or how it can be fixed.\nwe\u0026rsquo;ll find out in a week or two whether i defeated my classes or whether they defeated me.\nas for my inner life\u0026hellip;i guess i just wish it was excited enough about doing what is good and right and true to actually do it. right now it\u0026rsquo;s seeking gratification, not god.\ni guess that\u0026rsquo;s it, in conclusion. that\u0026rsquo;s this quarter. not a lot of really important bright spots come to mind. i can remember isolated talks with friends, isolated moments of victory, and isolated moments of true behavior, but these were wavering lights amidst a great dark. more, light.\nhow did i get my little boat this far out? where did the sun go? i suppose there\u0026rsquo;s nothing to do but bail out water and wait for help. no use paddling in circles. but it\u0026rsquo;s so cold and lonely and dark. when is morning?\ngoodbye, winter quarter 2002, and good riddance.\nvirtual disc on spin: delicate fade | common children\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/hope-please/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m leaving in 2.5 hours. i don\u0026rsquo;t know what to make of this recently-past quarter. it certainly had some of the crappiest moments in recent history. i got blasted in each of my classes at some point, my inner life slowly deteriorated, my walk with god was part of my inner life, and my end of things in my relationship with emily gradually sunk into blackness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewhich is where i still am \u0026ndash; i have no clue what i\u0026rsquo;m supposed to be doing with her, and i don\u0026rsquo;t have the capacity to deal with the mess of feelings. sometimes [lately] i surprise myself by how angry, hateful, spiteful, and ugly i can be inside my own head. and i\u0026rsquo;m not \u003cem\u003enormally\u003c/em\u003e that way. something\u0026rsquo;s obviously wrong, but i don\u0026rsquo;t know what or how it can be fixed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"hope, please"},{"content":"2:35am\u0026hellip;the clock is ticking\u0026hellip;faster, faster\u0026hellip;\nif only caffeine had an impact on me\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/all-nighter/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e2:35am\u0026hellip;the clock is ticking\u0026hellip;faster, faster\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eif only caffeine had an impact on me\u003c/p\u003e","title":"all-nighter"},{"content":"philosophy 184 paper: CHECK\nglad that\u0026rsquo;s over with!\n1 down, 2 to go.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/edmund-gettier/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ephilosophy 184 paper: \u003ca href=\"phil_paper.html\"\u003eCHECK\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eglad that\u0026rsquo;s over with!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1 down, 2 to go.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"edmund gettier"},{"content":"today was dedicated to revising my paper. but i\u0026rsquo;ve been awake for 12 hours with not a whole lot to show \u0026hellip;. i suck.\non the plus side i did talk to nate and chris, friends from home, for a while today. there\u0026rsquo;s not a whole lot of better things i could have done.\nvirtual disc on spin: speakeasy | stavesacre\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/revision/","summary":"\u003cp\u003etoday was dedicated to revising my paper. but i\u0026rsquo;ve been awake for 12 hours with not a whole lot to show \u0026hellip;. i suck.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eon the plus side i did talk to nate and chris, friends from home, for a while today. there\u0026rsquo;s not a whole lot of better things i could have done.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003evirtual disc on spin: speakeasy | stavesacre\u003c/p\u003e","title":"revision"},{"content":"ahh, classes are over for winter quarter. it was the suckiest quarter of my existence, but god got me through it. proof: here i am, and it\u0026rsquo;s over. heh.\nsadly, i\u0026rsquo;ve got three major hurdles left to go: the philosophy 184 paper rewrite (i got back a c+ on the first draft: major ouch), the logic problem set (we\u0026rsquo;ve already got most of it done, which is good), and the greek final (which will be hard as butt).\nbut, major though those hurdles may be, they will be over by 12pm tuesday, 3.19.2002. and that will be a beautiful day.\ni spent some time today acquiring a few new toys which i\u0026rsquo;ve been looking around for for some time now. i bought both at fry\u0026rsquo;s, which happened to have super great deals going today.\nfirst, since i don\u0026rsquo;t have a printer, and i need one for school, i bought one. in fact, i bought a laser printer\u0026hellip;.for $100. yeah, it\u0026rsquo;s a good deal.\nand i also bought an 80gb external firewire hard drive, to use for storing music, video, and document files. it\u0026rsquo;s pretty tight.\nthe capstone of the day, however, was a time of prayer and worship with some campus crusade folks\u0026hellip;.we met in the bottom of the history corner, and had two solid hours of praying with each other and praising god in song. it\u0026rsquo;s good to be in community\u0026hellip;\nespecially for me, since one of my biggest character flaws is my insistence that i don\u0026rsquo;t need people. but i\u0026rsquo;m human, obviously, and whether i like it or not i need community and intimacy. so it was good tonight.\nsounds: the pleasant hum of new electronic devices\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/the-cold-will-break-soon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eahh, classes are over for winter quarter. it was the suckiest quarter of my existence, but god got me through it. proof: here i am, and it\u0026rsquo;s over. heh.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003esadly, i\u0026rsquo;ve got three major hurdles left to go: the philosophy 184 paper rewrite (i got back a c+ on the first draft: major ouch), the logic problem set (we\u0026rsquo;ve already got most of it done, which is good), and the greek final (which will be hard as butt).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the cold will break soon..."},{"content":"the dashboard show tonight was great\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s always fun to sing along. especially when everyone else is singing along too, and no one cares if anyone sounds good.\nchris himself sounds more and more like a whiny guy with a british accent in his songs, but i guess we can\u0026rsquo;t hold that against him; the music\u0026rsquo;s awesome. and any man that can sing actual notes at that pitch can be forgiven for mutating a few vowel sounds, right?\nthree other bands played: the legend of rodeo, ben kweller, and the anniversary. all of them pretty decent.\nwhich brings us to now. i\u0026rsquo;m asleep. and what do you think of the new design?\ndisc on spin: summers kiss ep | dashboard confessional\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/dashboard-confessional-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe dashboard show tonight was great\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s always fun to sing along. especially when everyone else is singing along too, and no one cares if anyone sounds good.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003echris himself sounds more and more like a whiny guy with a british accent in his songs, but i guess we can\u0026rsquo;t hold that against him; the music\u0026rsquo;s awesome. and any man that can sing actual notes at that pitch can be forgiven for mutating a few vowel sounds, right?\u003c/p\u003e","title":"dashboard confessional 2002"},{"content":"i feel sort of like a rain cloud. a dark, nasty rain cloud that whips the hair back with wind and stings the eyes with water.\nand emily is a quiet, peaceful village. or was, before being besieged by the extremes of my temperament. now the peace is gone, the villagers have locked themselves inside, and the crops are dying.\nand oh, how i wish i wasn\u0026rsquo;t a storm. but however much i wish i wasn\u0026rsquo;t, i\u0026rsquo;m full of blinding lightning and cracking thunder. powerful in wrath, and weak and sick of it. arrogance is anvil heads towering miles high, and the higher they go, the lower my soul lies.\ndriven by a vacuum, a huge low-pressure area: an unexplainable lack that twists and claws the ground.\ni wish i wasn\u0026rsquo;t all these things, but like a storm it feels like i have no control over my nature. i\u0026rsquo;m stuck as i am until something more powerful comes along and assimilates or dissipates me.\nit might be cool to be a storm over the painted desert, but it is sad to be a storm over a quiet, peaceful little village. and right now, that\u0026rsquo;s what i am.\n---\non spin: \u0026ldquo;hallelujah\u0026rdquo; | jason killingsworth\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/power-is-frightening/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei feel sort of like a rain cloud. a dark, nasty rain cloud that whips the hair back with wind and stings the eyes with water.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand emily is a quiet, peaceful village. or was, before being besieged by the extremes of my temperament. now the peace is gone, the villagers have locked themselves inside, and the crops are dying.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand oh, how i wish i wasn\u0026rsquo;t a storm. but however much i wish i wasn\u0026rsquo;t, i\u0026rsquo;m full of blinding lightning and cracking thunder. powerful in wrath, and weak and sick of it. arrogance is anvil heads towering miles high, and the higher they go, the lower my soul lies.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"power is frightening"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;ve finished something that i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on quite a bit recently: the babel text in enaselvai. if you aren\u0026rsquo;t familiar with it, the babel text is genesis 11:1-9, and it tells the story of how god gave people different languages and spread them over the earth.\nfor any conlanger (person who makes constructed languages), it\u0026rsquo;s a traditional thing to translate the babel text into his or her language. it\u0026rsquo;s sort of symbolic\u0026hellip;in fact, one webring (\u0026ldquo;scattered tongues\u0026rdquo;) of conlangers refers to the text, and there\u0026rsquo;s a whole archive (the babel text archive) of the passage in different constructed languages. so, i thought i had better get around to it, and i did.\nthere are two files that you can look at if you\u0026rsquo;re interested (these are links):\nenaselvai-english verse by verse\nenaselvai-english word by word with grammatical help\nmake sure to make your browser big enough for the second one to ensure that you don\u0026rsquo;t cause line wraps.\nlet me know what you think!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/babel/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;ve finished something that i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on quite a bit recently: the babel text in enaselvai. if you aren\u0026rsquo;t familiar with it, the babel text is genesis 11:1-9, and it tells the story of how god gave people different languages and spread them over the earth.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003efor any conlanger (person who makes constructed languages), it\u0026rsquo;s a traditional thing to translate the babel text into his or her language. it\u0026rsquo;s sort of symbolic\u0026hellip;in fact, one webring (\u0026ldquo;scattered tongues\u0026rdquo;) of conlangers refers to the text, and there\u0026rsquo;s a whole archive (the babel text archive) of the passage in different constructed languages. so, i thought i had better get around to it, and i did.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"babel"},{"content":"if by the previous post you infer that i had a bad weekend, this would be false. the weekend was so good and relaxing\u0026ndash;i saw three movies (count of monte cristo, lord of the rings, and harry potter) all for free, and that\u0026rsquo;s always a good thing. i worked for hours on enaselvai, since i\u0026rsquo;m designing a computer font that will be like the characters above, only typeable in any windows application. there\u0026rsquo;s one problem: there are about 435 distinct character configurations in my language. this is due to the fact that every consonant and vowel group is combined into a single character. now, it might sound complicated, but it\u0026rsquo;s not\u0026ndash;once you know the characters (there\u0026rsquo;s only 20 actual characters), it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to write. a computer, however, can only write left to right or right to left\u0026ndash;not left then up then down then right, as i happen to need it to. so designing a font led to some dead ends which i am trying to work around. no luck so far.\nthe font idea slowly fizzling, i decided to translate into my language the one text which every conlanger translates: genesis 11:1-9, the babel text. it\u0026rsquo;s become a symbol for many conlangers, since it tells the story of the original derivation of many languages from one language. so, i\u0026rsquo;m still working on it, and will post it when i\u0026rsquo;m done. it\u0026rsquo;s actually quite a bit of work, because i\u0026rsquo;m having to make up words and grammar as i go along, and make sure that everything fits.\nthat was my weekend. and you might wonder, why then the previous post? i\u0026rsquo;ll tell you\u0026ndash;because it was necessary.\ntoday itself has been great too. i went to class, did some work, did some language stuff, went to the climbing wall for an hour and a half, ran a little over two miles, and went to small group. i\u0026rsquo;m now pleasantly sore, pleasantly tired, and pleasantly ready to be done with this quarter. my contacts, however, are not pleasant\u0026ndash;they suck (you might notice this being a recurring theme).\nin other news, pending a notice from the financial aid office, i\u0026rsquo;ll be applying to co-term in philosophy for the next year to two years. this is a pretty big decision for me, but i feel like it\u0026rsquo;s a smooth, logical, and good step to take. i\u0026rsquo;m praying that by getting in or not getting in, god would show me what to do! and if i don\u0026rsquo;t get in, no bother\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;m only a sophomore after all and i\u0026rsquo;ve got another year yet to do virtually the exact same thing and end at the exact same time.\nmore news: this server was down yesterday for quite a while, and i apologize. my new web host is not treating me very nicely, and it pains me to say this but i might be thinking of moving again. sorry! of course, you probably wouldn\u0026rsquo;t notice because the site address would not change this time.\nthanks for the recent comments. karin, the funny script at the top is a script i have developed for a language i\u0026rsquo;m currently creating, called enaselvai. a word of the day appears whenever i update it to the right!\nvirtual disc on spin: the faithful anchor | unwed sailor\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/strands-of-activity/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eif by the previous post you infer that i had a bad weekend, this would be false. the weekend was so good and relaxing\u0026ndash;i saw three movies (count of monte cristo, lord of the rings, and harry potter) all for free, and that\u0026rsquo;s always a good thing. i worked for hours on enaselvai, since i\u0026rsquo;m designing a computer font that will be like the characters above, only typeable in any windows application. there\u0026rsquo;s one problem: there are about 435 distinct character configurations in my language. this is due to the fact that every consonant and vowel group is combined into a single character. now, it might sound complicated, but it\u0026rsquo;s not\u0026ndash;once you know the characters (there\u0026rsquo;s only 20 actual characters), it\u0026rsquo;s very easy to write. a computer, however, can only write left to right or right to left\u0026ndash;not left then up then down then right, as i happen to need it to. so designing a font led to some dead ends which i am trying to work around. no luck so far.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"strands of activity"},{"content":"grace is life. but there is a burden to forgiveness. to the one who forgives i owe nothing, for i own nothing, and the gift is unconditional.\nyet there is something that i am bound to give, which i am not. to sin because of grace is the worst rationalization of man. to say, \u0026ldquo;it will not hurt me, and i will be forgiven in any case\u0026rdquo;, is not only false, it is hurt to my forgiver.\nwhat a backwards and despicable and ensnaring and insidious lie.\nnai télfu stavéma, náwo\nlistening to: the silence of my own finitude.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/i-want-life/","summary":"\u003cp\u003egrace is life. but there is a burden to forgiveness. to the one who forgives i owe nothing, for i own nothing, and the gift is unconditional.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eyet there is something that i am \u003cem\u003ebound\u003c/em\u003e to give, which i am not. to sin because of grace is the worst rationalization of man. to say, \u0026ldquo;it will not hurt me, and i will be forgiven in any case\u0026rdquo;, is not only false, it is \u003cem\u003ehurt to my forgiver\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i want life"},{"content":"at last, it is over. hell week, i would have called it. in all actuality, it was probably my hardest week at stanford so far. i had a 3,000 word page paper to write, a logic problem set to do, which turned out to be at least twice as hard as the previous problem sets, and a c++ program to write. i can\u0026rsquo;t remember doing anything but working on all that stuff, and working at meyer for my job.\nof course, i didn\u0026rsquo;t actually have to write the c++ program\u0026ndash;but i accidentally started on it, and i couldn\u0026rsquo;t rest until it was done, so i had to keep working on it until its completion.\nby the way, the program is in 3 parts in the last entry, and can be viewed simply by clicking on the names. same with the philosophy of knowledge paper. the program, if you\u0026rsquo;re wondering, takes as input a data file which is a log of all accesses to every file that exists on my website. and it organizes the data and outputs it to a file that i can read and understand.\nanyway, the week was cathartic\u0026ndash;i finally feel like i\u0026rsquo;m actually getting things done and not being a slacker. so i feel completely justified in having a fun weekend doing whatever i want to do. that release is so beautiful\u0026hellip;i\u0026rsquo;ve been living with tunnel vision the last few days, focused completely on my work, and it\u0026rsquo;s good to get out of that.\njust about one more week to go, then i\u0026rsquo;m flying home. that will rock. now to dinner and then freedom! movies, computer games, any other form of indulgent media call my name! maybe i\u0026rsquo;ll write a song this weekend. that would be nice.\nvirtual disc on spin: i might be wrong: live recordings | radiohead\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/relief/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eat last, it is over. hell week, i would have called it. in all actuality, it was probably my hardest week at stanford so far. i had a 3,000 word page paper to write, a logic problem set to do, which turned out to be at least twice as hard as the previous problem sets, and a c++ program to write. i can\u0026rsquo;t remember doing anything but working on all that stuff, and working at meyer for my job.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"relief"},{"content":"these have been some of my closest companions in the past few days:\nmain.cpp stats.h stats.cpp and\nphilosophy of knowledge paper between that, class, work, eat, sleep, and logic, i have done nothing else.\ni\u0026rsquo;m tired. goodnight.\n(why can\u0026rsquo;t i fall below the tide)\nvirtual disc on spin: heartstrings | my spacecoaster\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/its-all-about-codes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethese have been some of my closest companions in the past few days:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"main.cpp\"\u003emain.cpp\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"stats.h\"\u003estats.h\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"stats.cpp\"\u003estats.cpp\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"phil_paper.html\"\u003ephilosophy of knowledge paper\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ebetween that, class, work, eat, sleep, and logic, i have done nothing else.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m tired. goodnight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(why can\u0026rsquo;t i fall below the tide)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003evirtual disc on spin: heartstrings | my spacecoaster\u003c/p\u003e","title":"it's all about codes"},{"content":"it\u0026rsquo;s late but what the heck.\ni had a very eventful day, filled with unordinary things. first, i had greek, which was not unordinary. but, while i was in class i did still a cherry yogurt and an apple pastry, mmm.\nthen i went to the middle of the quad and read for an hour. what did i read? the proofs for the soundness and completeness of first-order logic. it\u0026rsquo;s completely insane. i\u0026rsquo;ve never done either of these things before, so they count as unordinary.\nafter that i attended a lecture by dr. john perry (prof i\u0026rsquo;ve had) on the existence of god and evil. i found out about the talk late last night. it wasn\u0026rsquo;t a bad talk by half, but as perry doesn\u0026rsquo;t believe in god, the focus was obviously on why evil hurts the idea of god\u0026rsquo;s existence. all the same it was well-given, if not particularly new, and i asked some questions that he seemed to think were intelligent. all that was unordinary.\nfrom then [lunch] until 5pm, i worked on my philosophy of knowledge paper. it\u0026rsquo;s a paper on why gettier counterexamples are invalid. if you care to know what that means, you should talk to me, because very few people do. the paper is frustrating, because at times, i feel like i\u0026rsquo;ve really got something important to say that no one\u0026rsquo;s really said before, and at other times i feel like my main point could actually be completely wrong. it\u0026rsquo;s not a good feeling.\nso at 5 i took all that frustration for a run. i ran the campus loop, plus a little extra, which is 4.5 miles. i\u0026rsquo;ve not run that much nonstop for close to 2 years! in fact i didn\u0026rsquo;t think i would be able to make the whole loop, but i just kept running and it all worked out fine. i did it in just under 40 minutes, which i felt was a great pace for me. this was very unordinary.\nso, a quick dinner, a little more paper work, and then i was off to the last veritas lecture. it was given by os guinness, great great grandson of the guinness who founded guiness breweries. in fact, both the catholic priest who introduced him and he himself began with guinness beer jokes. heh. irish.\nthe talk itself was on truth and modern culture, and i found it fascinating. i love it when smart christians say smart things and can think on their feet.\nto end the day, i came back to the room and worked a few more hours on the paper. still not being able to decide if the topic is worth pursuing or not. drat. then around midnight i decided to write a computer program, so i broke out the old c++ studio and started trying to remember my rusty coding skills. they\u0026rsquo;re starting to come back, so i\u0026rsquo;ll have fun working on this project. it\u0026rsquo;s a webpage statistics log analyzer for my website. sort of like those web stat things you can get added to your webpage, only i\u0026rsquo;m making one from scratch. stupid, eh?\nso the day was full of lots of things. now i\u0026rsquo;m exhausted, but i think i\u0026rsquo;ll do a little working out, take a shower, and then hit the sack. over and out.\nvirtual disc on spin: supernova | the echoing green\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/official-philosophy-day/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eit\u0026rsquo;s late but what the heck.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei had a very eventful day, filled with unordinary things. first, i had greek, which was not unordinary. but, while i was in class i did still a cherry yogurt and an apple pastry, mmm.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethen i went to the middle of the quad and read for an hour. what did i read? the proofs for the soundness and completeness of first-order logic. it\u0026rsquo;s completely insane. i\u0026rsquo;ve never done either of these things before, so they count as unordinary.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"official philosophy day"},{"content":"YOU\u0026rsquo;VE FOUND THE RIGHT SITE. CONGRATULATIONS!\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/bingo/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eYOU\u0026rsquo;VE FOUND THE RIGHT SITE. CONGRATULATIONS!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"bingo"},{"content":"just two more weeks. ready or not, here i come.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/where-is-spring-break-when-i-need-it/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ejust two more weeks. ready or not, here i come.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"where is spring break when i need it"},{"content":"my show was awesome. i played better than i ever have before in a show, and it felt so good to give what i thought was an accurate representation of my art to the people who were there. and there weren\u0026rsquo;t many of them, by any means\u0026ndash;i think it was the least well-attended of any of my shows, as well as the least well-attended show of the evening. in talking this over with dan, we decided that it was because i didn\u0026rsquo;t start till 11pm (people at stanford don\u0026rsquo;t understand the whole theory behind headlining and night shows and what have you).\nhere was the set list:\n1. solitary spaces\n2. affectionately yours\n3. almost there [pedro the lion cover, with special modifications\u0026hellip;also the theme song behind this blog. so in some ways it was a little disheartening that no one who reads this blog regularly was at the show tonight. or if he/she was, it\u0026rsquo;s slipped my mind.]\n4. i win again\n5. a pixellated life\n6. a veiled hope\n7. the tension of grey\ni was able to set a mic up and minidisc the entire show, and since there weren\u0026rsquo;t a lot of people there i didn\u0026rsquo;t get too much crowd noise. i\u0026rsquo;ll make mp3s of the songs soon, and make them available for download. that way if you missed the show you can still hear how it sounded!\nafter the show dan and i went out to the quad for a nice little hangout time. we smoked our pipes and talked about music and girls. well mostly i talked and rambled on to infinity about this, that, and the other, and he interjected with helpful comments now and then. all in all, a relaxing night. and of course we brought IBCs. so smooth and refreshing.\nsadly, what with practicing for the show, going to a veritas lecture (veritas is a lecture series at stanford every other year on truth, from a christian perspective. i heard dallas willard speak today on science and religion. he\u0026rsquo;s quite a solid philosopher. i was impressed), and whatever else, i didn\u0026rsquo;t get a smidgeon of work done. sad yet true. soon the bell will toll for me, i can hear it already.\nbut what i hear right now is the relaxing sound of falling water that is the shower, calling my name. it being 2:30am, i am OUT.\ndisc on spin: none\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/post-performance-euphoria/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emy show was \u003cem\u003eawesome\u003c/em\u003e. i played better than i ever have before in a show, and it felt so good to give what i thought was an accurate representation of my art to the people who were there. and there weren\u0026rsquo;t many of them, by any means\u0026ndash;i think it was the least well-attended of any of my shows, as well as the least well-attended show of the evening. in talking this over with dan, we decided that it was because i didn\u0026rsquo;t start till 11pm (people at stanford don\u0026rsquo;t understand the whole theory behind headlining and night shows and what have you).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"post-performance euphoria"},{"content":"ok folks, this is it: i\u0026rsquo;m changing the nameservers for jonathanlipps.com. i don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly what this will do\u0026ndash;maybe nothing will change. or maybe this site will go down for 2 days. once again, if you can\u0026rsquo;t access almostthere.jonathanlipps.com, the real address for this site is http://www.stanford.edu/~jon832/almostthere\nafter the domain switch, however, i will have a true domain and will not be hosting my site on stanford\u0026rsquo;s servers anymore. when that happens i will put a link to the new page on this blog. the blog will then continue at the other site, and not this one. so stay tuned!\nand come see me at the CoHo tonight @ 11.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/domain-name-switch/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eok folks, this is it: i\u0026rsquo;m changing the nameservers for jonathanlipps.com. i don\u0026rsquo;t know exactly what this will do\u0026ndash;maybe nothing will change. or maybe this site will go down for 2 days. once again, if you can\u0026rsquo;t access almostthere.jonathanlipps.com, the real address for this site is \u003ca href=\"http://www.stanford.edu/~jon832/almostthere\"\u003ehttp://www.stanford.edu/~jon832/almostthere\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eafter the domain switch, however, i will have a true domain and will not be hosting my site on stanford\u0026rsquo;s servers anymore. when that happens i will put a link to the new page on this blog. the blog will then continue at the other site, and not this one. so stay tuned!\u003c/p\u003e","title":"domain name switch"},{"content":"the pedro the lion show, at slim\u0026rsquo;s in SF, was incredible. david played all the songs off the upcoming release control, in song order. i liked each of the 10 songs so much, and completely rocked out to at least half of them.\ndavid was in top form\u0026hellip;.as witty as i\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen him. as humble, as endearing, as huggable (yes, someone asked him for a hug and he hopped down from the stage and gave the guy a hug after the show), as independent, as worshipful, as cussword-happy as ever.\nhe usually asks \u0026ldquo;are there any questions?\u0026rdquo; in between songs, to make sure the audience feels involved. although, he did say that he told himself that after control came out, he would cease this habit. because of that, i screwed up my nerve and asked him the last question of the night. (i asked him why he changed the lyrics to rapture [millionaire] and second best) so, if pedro follows through with his resolve not to do any more question-answering after 4.16, there\u0026rsquo;s a good chance that i will have been the last person who asked him a question like that in a show.\nthat was yesterday.\ntoday was a challenge. morning classes after a pedro show are not a good idea, so i skipped two of them. then i worked some more on my new song (i\u0026rsquo;ve changed the lyrics and music substantially since the last entry), and went to the wall for an hour, since i won\u0026rsquo;t be able to climb again until tuesday probably.\nemily and i had another long and heart rending discussion. hopefully the last. no gory details for your hungry little ears, but the upshot is that we thought about breaking up (kinda), but in the end decided to ask each other out again. however, this was quite a long process (4-5 hours), so i\u0026rsquo;m emotionally and physically drained. seems to be a common theme these days.\nalso, i had lots cool and interesting things to put in my blog, but forgot them all.\nin other news, i am thinking of making jonathan lipps t-shirts. soon i\u0026rsquo;ll be making a sort of fake pre-order page where you can see the design and tell me if it\u0026rsquo;d be worth buying. then i can decide whether they\u0026rsquo;d be worth making. stay tuned.\nin other rather important news, i think i\u0026rsquo;ll be changing internet hosting servers here, so there may be a day or two where jonathanlipps.com is down. if you find that it is, you can access this site directly by going to http://www.stanford.edu/~jon832/almostthere/ . that way you won\u0026rsquo;t lose any bloggy goodness. or suckiness.\nwe had one vote for a cover song, which in fact i think i will not do. in fact i don\u0026rsquo;t think i\u0026rsquo;m going to do any of the ones i listed. if you want to hear what i am going to do\u0026hellip;you\u0026rsquo;ll have to come to the show. 11:00pm at the coffee house! please come!\nnow i\u0026rsquo;m off to grove to watch a movie with some people. i was originally planning on going to sleep, but decided that human interaction might make me a better person. fitter, happier, even.\nsummary: gamma level overload. beta level deficiency. delta levels good. omega level clear.\nvirtual disc on spin: relocation | plankeye\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/03/i-wish-i-had-control/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe pedro the lion show, at slim\u0026rsquo;s in SF, was incredible. david played all the songs off the upcoming release \u003cem\u003econtrol\u003c/em\u003e, in song order. i liked each of the 10 songs so much, and completely rocked out to at least half of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edavid was in top form\u0026hellip;.as witty as i\u0026rsquo;ve ever seen him. as humble, as endearing, as huggable (yes, someone asked him for a hug and he hopped down from the stage and gave the guy a hug after the show), as independent, as worshipful, as cussword-happy as ever.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"i wish i had control"},{"content":"i\u0026rsquo;m tired and hungry and my contacts suck.\ntoday was a good day, but it was a day that i felt connected to me very loosely; as though if i didn\u0026rsquo;t put all my energy into not falling off, i would spiral down into nothingness.\nwhat the nothingness is exactly is sort of troubling, but as you would guess, it\u0026rsquo;s mostly just that\u0026ndash;nothing. no good, no bad. smooth, without a wrinkle of life.\nin the end, though, i did hang on. a few times my link to reality fuzzed in and out, but i\u0026rsquo;m still here. i\u0026rsquo;m still here, waiting for something to happen. eating a pop-tart.\ni taught a course on scanning and ocr software today to three middle-aged women. i also slept through one class and 40 minutes of another. i also wrote a song, tentatively entitled \u0026lsquo;grey\u0026rsquo;. after having writer\u0026rsquo;s block for so long, it was a clean breath of sea-salty air to be working on a song, not just imagining one. it\u0026rsquo;s almost done, and i hope to play it on saturday at the show. since i haven\u0026rsquo;t written much lately, i\u0026rsquo;ll go ahead and append the lyrics to this entry, as cheesy as that is. i figure as long as it\u0026rsquo;s mine it\u0026rsquo;s ok. feel free to comment.\nalso, if you care, you should vote on which cover i will do on saturday. the choices so far are:\n\u0026ldquo;everything\u0026rdquo; | lifehouse\n\u0026ldquo;true love waits\u0026rdquo; | radiohead\n\u0026ldquo;don\u0026rsquo;t be there\u0026rdquo; | switchfoot (i don\u0026rsquo;t know this one yet)\n\u0026ldquo;april 6, 2039\u0026rdquo; | pedro the lion\nor if you have suggestions, feel free. now, the so-called lyrics to my new song:\n_when i sing it feels better\n_ _standing looking out the window\n_ _hand out to catch the rain\n_ drip down slow crystal moving\n_the grey is more than monotone\n_ _now that I can pierce it through\n_ _i don\u0026rsquo;t have to see the blue behind it\n_ i know it\u0026rsquo;s there for me\n_shadows fade and bleed,\n_ _please, deny that they are real\n_ _strange how they see me\n_ strange that they run\n_taking words, stringing them together\n_ _i hope i\u0026rsquo;m making sense\n_ _clarity is the goal\n_ drip down the meaning shows\n_shifting shades lose their opacity\n_ _the power to conceal is gone\n_ _what is beyond is so incredible\n_ it\u0026rsquo;s a shame i didn\u0026rsquo;t see it before\n_turn on the light that\u0026rsquo;s in my mind to flood the world with colors\n_ _let your eyes see what\u0026rsquo;s really there stop looking at the canvas\n_ _put down your brush dumb ignorance for you don\u0026rsquo;t have the talent\n_ to represent the way things are with your soul-numbing grey\nalpha through epsilon levels: check.\ntheta through omega levels: clear.\nvirtual disc on spin: mezzamorphis | delirious?\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/rainfall-monologue/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m tired and hungry and my contacts suck.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etoday was a good day, but it was a day that i felt connected to me very loosely; as though if i didn\u0026rsquo;t put all my energy into not falling off, i would spiral down into nothingness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewhat the nothingness is exactly is sort of troubling, but as you would guess, it\u0026rsquo;s mostly just that\u0026ndash;nothing. no good, no bad. smooth, without a wrinkle of life.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"rainfall: monologue"},{"content":"for those of you who couldn\u0026rsquo;t guess, the last entry was fiction. allegory, even.\ntoday rocked pretty hard. i\u0026rsquo;d even give it a rock and a half, for kicks. mostly boring usual stuff you don\u0026rsquo;t care about.\ni did go to the wall finally, after 2 weeks. i was pretty weak, but they had some new routes up and i had fun trying to crack a few.\ni did talk to emily a lot, i did hang out with my friend chris for a while.\ni did not do all of my greek homework.\nyou see, my problem here is one of priority. my alpha levels were taken care of throughout the day, but certain delta and epsilon level activities got in the way of me finishing all of my beta levels. and when push came to shove, i decided that gamma levels were more important. in a sense, they are. but now i\u0026rsquo;m paying for it.\nat least i stayed clear of omega level. omega level prime even.\nsinging in my head: \u0026ldquo;sweetness\u0026rdquo; | jimmy eat world\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/alpha-levels-check/","summary":"\u003cp\u003efor those of you who couldn\u0026rsquo;t guess, the last entry was \u003cem\u003efiction\u003c/em\u003e. allegory, even.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etoday rocked pretty hard. i\u0026rsquo;d even give it a rock and a half, for kicks. mostly boring usual stuff you don\u0026rsquo;t care about.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei did go to the wall finally, after 2 weeks. i was pretty weak, but they had some new routes up and i had fun trying to crack a few.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei did talk to emily a lot, i did hang out with my friend chris for a while.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"alpha levels check!"},{"content":"my body lay in the sand, white and gaunt and all bones, like a bleached skeleton of some prehistoric animal. i was dry and desiccated. my stomach was shrunk to nothing, and my tongue so swollen from heat and thirst that i could barely breathe, much less drink. not that there was anything to drink in the desert.\nhow did i end up here?, i asked myself. i used the last of my energy to turn around and look at my footsteps. they trailed off west, as far as my cracked and sun-blinded eyes could see. no sign of the City. no blue lakes and tall white buildings. no gleam from adamantine roads or piercing towers. nothing but sand and heat.\nit\u0026rsquo;s too late anyway, i thought. if i can\u0026rsquo;t go five feet forward, it makes no difference if the City is ten feet behind or a million. i\u0026rsquo;m done here.\nwhy did i leave? i knew there was nothing but desert out here. what was i going to do? walk across it? to where? and now my foolishness mocks me. i\u0026rsquo;m going to die here.\nand then\u0026ndash;the sound of silver. not the metal; the color. with an odd feeling of recognition i look up, and remember no more except going blind.\n---\nthirst. my only thought is for water. i don\u0026rsquo;t even realize that i\u0026rsquo;m alive, but i thirst. i open my eyes, but everything is fuzzy. i grope around, hoping to find some vessel of liquid.\n\u0026ldquo;patience. you just died. or close enough. your body is so dehydrated you can\u0026rsquo;t have anything to drink yet. i\u0026rsquo;m giving you the appropriate fluids as you have need. rest, and soon you will be able to drink. and be thankful that you are alive\u0026rdquo;\nthen i slept.\n---\ni don\u0026rsquo;t know why i left. i don\u0026rsquo;t know where i thought i was going. to some imaginary better place, maybe, beyond the dunes. no one ever finds anything there but death. but i know who rescued me from it, and it is good to see him again. it\u0026rsquo;s been far too long.\nsoon now i will be able to eat, to get up and walk around. what a sweet thought! there is no lack of water, here, either, to run strength through my body. and, as soon as i am able, i\u0026rsquo;m anxious to get back to the City. there are people there that i have missed, and they will be glad to know that i\u0026rsquo;m alive. i\u0026rsquo;m alive, and i hate the desert for its death.\ni don\u0026rsquo;t ever want to go out there again.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/out-beyond-the-dunes/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emy body lay in the sand, white and gaunt and all bones, like a bleached skeleton of some prehistoric animal. i was dry and desiccated. my stomach was shrunk to nothing, and my tongue so swollen from heat and thirst that i could barely breathe, much less drink. not that there was anything to drink in the desert.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ehow did i end up here?, i asked myself. i used the last of my energy to turn around and look at my footsteps. they trailed off west, as far as my cracked and sun-blinded eyes could see. no sign of the City. no blue lakes and tall white buildings. no gleam from adamantine roads or piercing towers. nothing but sand and heat.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"out beyond the dunes"},{"content":"what a fantastic day. it\u0026rsquo;s gotta be at least 70 degrees. after a good class, a good lunch, and a good meeting with my philosophy advisor, i went to the oval, took off my shirt, and laid in the sun for an hour and a half. i listened to good music and did some productive reading while the sun reddened my skin. the soft breeze kept things cool enough, and score after gaggle of girls walked by again and again lusting after my body.\njust to think that people live where it\u0026rsquo;s snowing right now\u0026hellip;\nsong on spin: dancing days | led zeppelin\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/my-body-is-a-wonderland/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewhat a fantastic day. it\u0026rsquo;s gotta be at least 70 degrees. after a good class, a good lunch, and a good meeting with my philosophy advisor, i went to the oval, took off my shirt, and laid in the sun for an hour and a half. i listened to good music and did some productive reading while the sun reddened my skin. the soft breeze kept things cool enough, and score after gaggle of girls walked by again and again lusting after my body.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"my body is a wonderland"},{"content":"a long night of crying on the phone. but i still have a girlfriend. and that\u0026rsquo;s worth it.\non spin: song b | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/barely/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ea long night of crying on the phone. but i still have a girlfriend. and that\u0026rsquo;s worth it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eon spin: song b | pedro the lion\u003c/p\u003e","title":"barely."},{"content":"sílnova man stavéma, ecárada los ecsedímu merónema. telyeími óret\nthis is what i am yelling in my head, though you can\u0026rsquo;t hear it and don\u0026rsquo;t know what it means. it is because i need jesus (who does know what it means). and the magnitude of that need never ceases to amaze me. as jaded and blasé as i am\u0026ndash;as disinterested and bored as i could ever become, i will never be able to get over that. and how much greater than the need is the fulfilling? infinitely so. therefore i pray\u0026ndash;shock me with infinity, god.\net seumadeíma árel thanódla\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/slnova-man-stavma/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003esílnova man stavéma, ecárada los ecsedímu merónema. telyeími óret\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ethis is what i am yelling in my head, though you can\u0026rsquo;t hear it and don\u0026rsquo;t know what it means. it is because i need jesus (who does know what it means). and the magnitude of that need never ceases to amaze me. as jaded and blasé as i am\u0026ndash;as disinterested and bored as i could ever become, i will never be able to get over that. and how much greater than the need is the fulfilling? infinitely so. therefore i pray\u0026ndash;shock me with infinity, god.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sílnova man stavéma"},{"content":"i read something that bugged the heck out of me. it was one of those pop-culture cynic-critic people, and he said, paraphrased, \u0026ldquo;blogs that just recount daily events are soooo lame\u0026rdquo;. basically, since there is nothing unique about these blogs, nothing interesting, exciting, insightful, witty, thought-provoking, intelligent, artistic, well-said, or well-turned in them, they are worthless. lame.\ni guess it could bug me for two reasons:\n1. there is something wrong-headed about that mindset\n2. i have one of those lame blogs and i just don\u0026rsquo;t like that someone would call it lame.\ni\u0026rsquo;ll leave it up to you to decide if (2) is true. it very well could be, but i\u0026rsquo;m not going to let myself make a decision on that point. i think that the cynic\u0026rsquo;s thought grated on me because i don\u0026rsquo;t like his standard of a \u0026ldquo;good\u0026rdquo; blog. i suppose that he is allowed to have his opinion, but as for me i have no problem letting \u0026ldquo;lame\u0026rdquo; blogs exist and letting them have the same rights as other blogs. if you think something\u0026rsquo;s lame, don\u0026rsquo;t read it. don\u0026rsquo;t write about it either, lame-o.\nin recent news, school has ruled my life for the past four days. i haven\u0026rsquo;t had a spare moment to myself since i got back from england\u0026hellip;i guess that\u0026rsquo;s what i get for gallivanting around the world. anyways, in particular logic has kicked my butt, since a problem set was due today (in fact, if you want to see what i spend so much time working on and have microsoft word, i uploaded the answers to my recent problem set part 1). everyone rejoice with me that i at least attempted part 2 this time. i don\u0026rsquo;t think i actually got any of it right, but at least i had time to look at it. maybe next time i will progress even further.\nalso, my parents are in town (actually down staying in santa cruz) for the weekend, since it\u0026rsquo;s Parent\u0026rsquo;s Weekend here at stanford. they came to the dorm around 4 this afternoon, and watched our dorm talent show. i was in it and played the song a pixellated life to kick it off. then my parents took me out to CPK for a wonderful dinner.\nemily and i had a long discussion about what art is tonight. it was pretty interesting. i like art. i wish i was good at some kind of studio art, but i guess i should stick to music.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been trying to write some music lately, and i think i actually have 4 or 5 or 6 viable new song ideas. i just don\u0026rsquo;t really have the lyrics to go along, and so i\u0026rsquo;ve been at a bottleneck here for quite a while. it\u0026rsquo;s so aggravating. as i\u0026rsquo;m asking, \u0026ldquo;will my pen some day just stop producing ink?\u0026rdquo; i hope not. what do you think chris cross. i\u0026rsquo;m certainly not going to throw in my mic or my towel just to quit.\nin other more important news, i have two mp3s from the upcoming pedro the lion album control. i can\u0026rsquo;t wait till the whole thing comes out. you\u0026rsquo;ll also notice by looking at the sidebar that i\u0026rsquo;m going to see pedro on thurs. in SF. this will be quite sweet.\nnow my contacts have achieved that wonderfully disgusting state of gooey, slow, solidness with pointy edges. i am going to go remove them and read in bed until i fall asleep.\nvirtual disc on spin: pedro the lion | progress\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/blogology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei read something that bugged the heck out of me. it was one of those pop-culture cynic-critic people, and he said, paraphrased, \u0026ldquo;blogs that just recount daily events are soooo lame\u0026rdquo;. basically, since there is nothing unique about these blogs, nothing interesting, exciting, insightful, witty, thought-provoking, intelligent, artistic, well-said, or well-turned in them, they are worthless. lame.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei guess it could bug me for two reasons:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. there is something wrong-headed about that mindset\u003c/p\u003e","title":"blogology"},{"content":"man, these days are flying by. and since when have i wrote in my blog in the morning? the days are evil, i tell you.\nyesterday was a standard day\u0026ndash;logic, greek, lunch, work, guitar, dinner, logic, sleep. i went over to storey after dinner to work on the logic problem set with achyut and matt\u0026hellip;we worked on it for 3 hours or so and got almost halfway done with part 1. i guess we\u0026rsquo;re doing the rest tonight, and i have to try part 2 tomorrow afternoon. i hope i get it done this time.\ni\u0026rsquo;m not particularly looking forward to today, since thursdays are my most busy days\u0026hellip;i have a meeting with spud, class, lunch, work (teaching a workshop today, that\u0026rsquo;s extra stress. but it\u0026rsquo;s only on powerpoint so it should be easy), then crusade. back to back 10am-9pm. ick. and after that there\u0026rsquo;s still logic and an entire unit of greek.\nin other, better news, tomorrow my parents arrive for parents weekend! i\u0026rsquo;ll be playing in a dorm talent show that we\u0026rsquo;re having for the parents. my mom and dad have never heard me perform, so it will be an interesting experience.\noh yeah, i got on the net with netscape communicator yesterday at work, and looked at my blog\u0026ndash;yuck. it looks really stupid in netscape. i advise you all to use internet explorer 5 or higher.\nand now off to piece together a coherent thesis for my knowledge paper\u0026hellip;\ndisc on spin: the sounds of the early morning.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/days-fly-by/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eman, these days are flying by. and since when have i wrote in my blog in the morning? the days are evil, i tell you.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eyesterday was a standard day\u0026ndash;logic, greek, lunch, work, guitar, dinner, logic, sleep. i went over to storey after dinner to work on the logic problem set with achyut and matt\u0026hellip;we worked on it for 3 hours or so and got almost halfway done with part 1. i guess we\u0026rsquo;re doing the rest tonight, and i have to try part 2 tomorrow afternoon. i hope i get it done this time.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"days fly by"},{"content":"i didn\u0026rsquo;t really do anything interesting last night, except talk to emily a while on the phone. and i went to bed early. so now i\u0026rsquo;m awake early\u0026ndash;i got up at 6:45am. isn\u0026rsquo;t that insane? i ate breakfast in the dining hall for the first time in a long time. and i studied for my greek quiz, which is in an hour or so. i have a logic problem set to do today. suck. go away school.\nthere, aren\u0026rsquo;t you glad i bothered to write that.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/no-really-arent-you-glad/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei didn\u0026rsquo;t really do anything interesting last night, except talk to emily a while on the phone. and i went to bed early. so now i\u0026rsquo;m awake early\u0026ndash;i got up at 6:45am. isn\u0026rsquo;t that insane? i ate breakfast in the dining hall for the first time in a long time. and i studied for my greek quiz, which is in an hour or so. i have a logic problem set to do today. suck. go away school.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"no, really, aren't you glad?"},{"content":"i decided to procrastinate, so here are some of the better pictures i took in england (in order of occurrence):\nheathrow int\u0026rsquo;l airport - standing around\nwarwick castle - view of the castle from the front\nthe back gate of the castle from the inside emily and i standing on a tower emily and i in front of the castle bob the american tourist oxford - view of an oxford college\nlandscape looking the other direction emily in red telephone booth at night london - emily in trafalgar square\nthe national gallery (art museum) family in front of westminster abbey emily and i in front of westminster abbey big ben parliament house tate museum of modern art installation art exhibit (top floor) in museum harrod\u0026rsquo;s at night stonehenge, bath, and the cotswolds - stonehenge\ncathedral in bath ancient roman bath ancient roman underground heating system emily and i sitting on a bridge view from that same bridge hope you enjoy.\ndisc on spin: room for squares | john mayer\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/photos-of-the-trip/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei decided to procrastinate, so here are some of the better pictures i took in england (in order of occurrence):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eheathrow int\u0026rsquo;l airport\u003c/strong\u003e - \u003ca href=\"england_01.jpg\"\u003estanding around\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ewarwick castle\u003c/strong\u003e - \u003ca href=\"england_02.jpg\"\u003eview of the castle from the front\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"england_03.jpg\"\u003ethe back gate of the castle from the inside\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"england_04.jpg\"\u003eemily and i standing on a tower\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"england_05.jpg\"\u003eemily and i in front of the castle\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"england_06.jpg\"\u003ebob the american tourist\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eoxford\u003c/strong\u003e - \u003ca href=\"england_07.jpg\"\u003eview of an oxford college\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"england_08.jpg\"\u003elandscape looking the other direction\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"england_09.jpg\"\u003eemily in red telephone booth at night\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003elondon\u003c/strong\u003e - \u003ca href=\"england_10.jpg\"\u003eemily in trafalgar square\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"photos of the trip"},{"content":"but i suppose some of you were wondering what i did in england. here\u0026rsquo;s the story:\nfirst, dan drove me to the airport last wednesday morning. i checked in, then hung around the terminal listening to over the rhine. my parents arrived from orlando (via dallas), and i met them at their gate. (they flew from orlando to san jose to pick up a buttload of extra mileage). we then went to board our flight to st. louis. of course, it was delayed, and then cancelled. this was no good, because david and rachel were flying from orlando to st. louis, and emily was flying from indianapolis to st. louis. we were all going to meet there and fly to london on the same plane. but, our flight to st. louis being cancelled, there was no way we would all be able to get out of the country until the next day. thinking it important to a) leave that day, and b) fly all together on the same flight, we had to be a little creative.\neventually my dad got us on a flight to chicago, and had boarding passes readied for david, rachel, and emily at the admiral\u0026rsquo;s club in st. louis (where they were supposed to wait for us). they were going to fly to chicago to meet us, and we were all going to leave from there for london (albeit heathrow, not gatwick). this type of maneuver is generally either impossible or expensive ($100 for a ticket change like that), but because of my dad\u0026rsquo;s good relationship with american airlines, being platinum, a member of the admiral\u0026rsquo;s club, etc\u0026hellip;, we were able to have it done for us quickly and for free. at that point i was very glad my parents had decided to fly to san jose, for if not, i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have had the clout to get even myself to chicago, and everyone else would have been in the air on the way to st. louis.\nstill, it was hard, because we were forced into the worse seats on our way across the atlantic. also, the flight to london was emotionally trying, because of emily. there\u0026rsquo;s too much to go into, but the short of it is that i didn\u0026rsquo;t really know what kind of relationship we were going to have after this trip, if one at all. my heart had been so hardened towards emily over winter quarter that, despite her willingness to make things work, i wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure if i wasn\u0026rsquo;t just going to pull out. as for why my heart was not particularly congenial to her, i\u0026rsquo;m still trying to figure out, so don\u0026rsquo;t expect any explanations. so the air between us was very tense on that first flight, as we knew we had to work things out if we didn\u0026rsquo;t want the trip to be a complete horror.\nultimately i had to make the decision right there in the plane whether or not emily and i were going to stay together. my mind was so confused and my heart so hidden that it was a very difficult decision. making any decision had become so difficult for me\u0026ndash;it was as if my will had completely atrophied. it was also as if god was saying \u0026ldquo;look i\u0026rsquo;m not going to spoon-feed you. you\u0026rsquo;ve spent the last few years of your life asking me to give you strength and legs to stand on. well, now\u0026rsquo;s your chance. stand.\u0026rdquo; and i\u0026rsquo;m not sure if that\u0026rsquo;s accurate, or how far i can take the analogy, but it did feel as if god had vacated and left me to make up my mind on my own on this one. and that sucked hardcore.\nso i took the red flight blanket, put it over my head, and prayed. i also cried. either path ahead of me seemed to plunge into darkness, for different reasons. murky, unclear, diffuse and disorienting darkness. and i knew that the minute i picked one path and started on it, the other would seem to brighten, tempting and taunting my decision. having nothing more to go on but my own sorry wisdom, i had no assurance that this false clearing/brightening would really be false. i was paralyzed. but in the end, my own sorry wisdom gathered up its flabby hide and started on the road of its choosing - emily and i would stay together and try to work out whatever was wrong.\nthen i got sick from the stress of the decision and went to sleep. not entirely happy, but with a lighter heart.\nwe landed in heathrow at 10am london time (1am body time), and went through customs (where my bag broke, and ceased to be a rolling suitcase). then there was a dilemma\u0026ndash;we had planned on landing at gatwick, and so at gatwick was the car we had reserved to rent. we attempted to get a van at heathrow for the same price (absurdly cheap, relatively speaking), but to no avail. so we had american airlines buy us bus passes so that we could be shuttled to gatwick to pick up our vehicle. it was about an hour\u0026rsquo;s trip. we wandered through gatwick to the rental agency there, and took yet another shuttle to the off-airport Sixt car rental facility. after all that riding around i thought it couldn\u0026rsquo;t get worse, and i was right. they actually gave us a much nicer van than the tiny one we had rented.\nthus armed, we began our mad rush to see the country. we drove straight from the rental place to Cambridge, which was at least 3 hours from gatwick, stopping only to get a few snacks at a gas station, including the requisite mcvitties. we got to cambridge around twilight and walked around for about an hour. the campus was amazingly beautiful, and instilled in me again the desire to go to school at oxford or cambridge. but, we were all jet-lagged and starving, and it had gotten dark, so we didn\u0026rsquo;t do much touring before we stopped in at a pub for dinner. the pub was called the Eagle, and it is the oldest operating pub in england. (ironic\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ve now been to the oldest operating pubs in both england and ireland). the fish and chips were marvelous.\nfull, yet still tired, we left to go home. home was the wycliffe uk headquarters, located outside of high wycombe (my dad is wycliffe bible translator\u0026rsquo;s legal counsel). we stayed in converted army barracks in three rooms\u0026ndash;my brother and i in one, emily and rachel in another, and my mom and dad in a third. the remaining three rooms of the little hostel had other more long-term guests. we took our echinacea and melatonin and gradually fell asleep. i stayed up a little later with emily talking and reading the books i had brought. when i finally got into bed i was asleep before i closed my eyes. i don\u0026rsquo;t think i dreamed, but if i did it would have been of the ultra-stratified city-state of Dome on Empyrion. i think i would have been a Rumon.\nthe next morning we had breakfast at 7am\u0026ndash;a bowl of meusli accompanied by toast and jam. we scraped the ice off the windows of the van and started out for the day, heading north to Warwick castle. driving over 100mph on the M, we got there in roughly an hour\u0026ndash;just about opening time for the castle. warwick castle is just exactly what you would imagine a medieval castle looking like - towers, ramparts, dungeons, cobblestone streets, a huge double-entrance gatehouse\u0026hellip;the whole bit. we wandered around and looked at the various things there were to look at until lunchtime. it was quite fantastic\u0026ndash;slightly commercialized/tourist-ized, but real and compelling in spite of that. this was no disney castle.\nthey did, however, have a bowman demonstrating longbow techniques and etc. my dad (\u0026lsquo;bob the american tourist\u0026rsquo; according to the bowman) was of course the volunteer (\u0026lsquo;victim\u0026rsquo;) for the interactive part of the show. and i had tried all morning to not be noticed as a tourist. sigh.\nat lunchtime our stomachs signalled the retreat and we walked into the town of warwick to get baguettes at a little bakery for lunch. then we reclaimed our vehicle and headed back down towards the area where we were staying. not quite home, we began the second segment of the day and visited oxford. we walked the streets, looked at the colleges, and it felt good to be back there. i even stopped by the stanford house to see if any of the few people that i knew were in. they weren\u0026rsquo;t, so i left a message and we continued walking. the countryside and architecture were so beautiful\u0026ndash;it was hard to believe that, depending on where i was, a street or two over was a busy shopping district.\nafter a few hours it was dinnertime and we stopped in at the Eagle and Child pub. this pub\u0026rsquo;s claim to fame is that it was the home of the inklings, which members include c.s. lewis and j.r.r. tolkien. in a place like that you can\u0026rsquo;t help but feel the history\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;i\u0026rsquo;m sitting in the same room that c.s. lewis had ideas for the narnia chronicles in\u0026rdquo;. my dad and brother and i got drinks, and waited for the ladies, who had gone off shopping for a moment. they arrived, but sadly we had to inform them that the pub didn\u0026rsquo;t serve meals on weekdays.\nso eventually we left and went back to horsley\u0026rsquo;s green (where the wycliffe center was located), and ate at a small local pub called the Studley Arms. (no pun intended\u0026ndash;the neighborhood was called Studley Green). we got home, and that night was a replay of the previous.\nfor the third day, we did the same morning routine, then drove out to a train station in wycombe. we bought train/underground/metro passes and caught a train in to london, which was about a 35 minute ride. arriving in london before noon, we spent the next 6 hours or so on a whirlwind tour. we took the underground all over town, and saw such famous and interesting sites such as trafalgar square, the national gallery of art, big ben, westminster abbey, parliament house, the thames river, the tower of london, the tower bridge, the london bridge, the globe theater, the tate museum of modern art, harrod\u0026rsquo;s knightsbridge, buckingham palace, and more. needless to say, it was completely awesome, as well as completely exhausting, owing to the speed at which we walked here and there. finally we ate dinner at a pub near harrod\u0026rsquo;s called the Tea Clipper, and i had the british version of the bacon cheeseburger. i had forgotten that bacon doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean bacon so much as it means a thick piece of ham. but it was quite good.\ni slept on the train ride back, then read a bit at home, then fell right asleep again. beware of international travel\u0026ndash;if you\u0026rsquo;re only there for a few days, you will be very tired.\nfor the last day, we did very little walking and mostly driving style sight-seeing. first we drove east out to stonehenge. ironically, it\u0026rsquo;s just sort of on the side of a highway. so we got out, snapped a few photos, got back in, and went on our way. half an hour later we arrived at bath. it is so named because it contains an ancient roman bathhouse built over a natural hot spring. they\u0026rsquo;ve excavated the roman architecture and it\u0026rsquo;s now a tourist attraction. it was pretty sweet (and by sweet i mean totally awesome, of course), and it was once again one of those places where you just feel the history overwhelming you. so many lives so many years ago. so different, and yet indubitably human. cool. we ordered some baguettes at another small bakery and then we were on our way!\nthe rest of the day was spent driving around the cotswolds\u0026ndash;the quaint, countryside district of england that brings to mind places like the setting of watership down, the world of brian jacques, the home of shakespeare among others, etc\u0026hellip; we had high tea in a beautiful little village and wandered around until dark. sightseeing being rather hard in the dark, we stopped off at our last pub of the trip, the Bell, near bourghton-on-water. we had a quiet meal and then i slept on the drive back to our barracks.\nand that concluded our visit! it was sad the next morning to pack up and leave (and because it was 6am). we left out of gatwick close to noon and had a smooth 9-hour flight back to st. louis. i spent the whole time talking with emily. during the course of the trip our relationship had gone through a fairly complete transformation, and i was once again excited about the prospect of us and the hopefulness of the future. i still am, and i hope i stay that way!\nso i was sad that at st. louis we\u0026rsquo;d have to part, and possibly not see each other for two more months. the sadness multiplied when eventually we did part, and i got on my plane for san jose while she watched me leave, standing in the terminal. it felt kind of unfair, that just when i felt most loving towards her again, after my heart being dragged through hell, and dragging hers with it, we had to be separated. that feeling settled in, and i slept.\nthus, i have come home, and am back at work, trying to rev up my life here to peak efficiency once more. i only hope that the subtle changes in my heart would crystallize and stay firm, and not disappear.\nwhich brings us to today. i got up absurdly early due to jet lag, so i caught up on some work that was due at 11. i went to class, lunch, and now i\u0026rsquo;m at work. the boring monotony begins. but at least it was suspended for the last 5 days!\nanyway i have got to run. if you\u0026rsquo;re still reading, where is your life? on another note, leave me a comment if you\u0026rsquo;d like me to put up links to a few of the better pictures that i took on digital camera during my trip!\ndisc on spin: none\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/england-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ebut i suppose some of you were wondering what i did in england. here\u0026rsquo;s the story:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003efirst, dan drove me to the airport last wednesday morning. i checked in, then hung around the terminal listening to over the rhine. my parents arrived from orlando (via dallas), and i met them at their gate. (they flew from orlando to san jose to pick up a buttload of extra mileage). we then went to board our flight to st. louis. of course, it was delayed, and then cancelled. this was no good, because david and rachel were flying from orlando to st. louis, and emily was flying from indianapolis to st. louis. we were all going to meet there and fly to london on the same plane. but, our flight to st. louis being cancelled, there was no way we would all be able to get out of the country until the next day. thinking it important to a) leave that day, and b) fly all together on the same flight, we had to be a little creative.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"england 2002"},{"content":"three things are contributing to the huge hole in my heart right now:\n1. coming back to real life from an international trip, having travelled 22 hours to do so.\n2. having emily torn from me again. i hate distance.\n3. thinking that i will have to wake up at 8 tomorrow to do the homework that i was unable to finish on the trip\ni\u0026rsquo;m sort of in the mood where i would cry if i could but my heart is a little too dulled from loneliness of travel too feel like anything other than a solid lump. i\u0026rsquo;m sort of in the mood where i want to write music, but i know any attempts at lyrics would be sacrilege. the inexpressibility of feelings is a copout, i know, but there are some things that i need to keep to myself before putting into song.\nit was a good trip.\nbut i miss england. i miss long cozy plane flights. i miss adventure. i miss emily. i miss her kisses, her hands. i miss my friends, my family. i miss life. i miss having a heart. i miss caring. i miss feeling. i miss having a will. i hate stoicism. i hate stone faces. i hate hard hearts. i hate failure. i hate indecision. i hate grace, because i resent needing it. i hate circles and spirals. i need love. i need a deep well of spirit. i need something more to go on. i need rest. i need action. i need a king to serve, a sword, a strong arm to wield it, fire in my eyes and heart. i need fantasy. i need reality. i need heaven. i need peace. be still.\nvirtual disc on spin: it\u0026rsquo;s hard to find a friend | pedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/empty/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethree things are contributing to the huge hole in my heart right now:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1. coming back to real life from an international trip, having travelled 22 hours to do so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2. having emily torn from me again. i hate distance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e3. thinking that i will have to wake up at 8 tomorrow to do the homework that i was unable to finish on the trip\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei\u0026rsquo;m sort of in the mood where i would cry if i could but my heart is a little too dulled from loneliness of travel too feel like anything other than a solid lump. i\u0026rsquo;m sort of in the mood where i want to write music, but i know any attempts at lyrics would be sacrilege. the inexpressibility of feelings is a copout, i know, but there are some things that i need to keep to myself before putting into song.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"empty"},{"content":"interesting fact of the day #1: two of the campus\u0026rsquo; biggest weezer fans are in my room right now playing weezer covers. you might wonder why. i do too.\nwell, we\u0026rsquo;re at T-8 hours and counting till dan takes me to the airport. if you\u0026rsquo;re wondering what books i\u0026rsquo;m taking to accompany me in my travels, here they are:\nattic greek (textbook)\na mathematical introduction to logic (textbook)\nwarranted christian belief, by philosopher alvin plantinga\nthe empyrion saga, by stephen r. lawhead.\nalong with the books comes the music. i\u0026rsquo;ll be bringing my entire minidisc collection, which has the range of my cd collection, but not the domain. i.e., there is some function V such that V : MD -\u0026gt; CD. meaning, function V is a mapping function which sends each member of the set MD to a member of the set CD. but this map, while it may be homomorphic, is certainly not an isomorphic embedding. therefore MD is not isomomorphic to CD.\nthat\u0026rsquo;s what too much logic does to a man.\nthe upshot is that i have quite a variety of my favorite music. close to 3,000 minutes, in fact. this translates to 50 hours, or 2 days and 2 hours. all in about 20 small discs. and unlike those cheesy mp3 players, this is all CD quality noise, baby.\nbooks, music, the magnificent white noise of the aircraft\u0026rsquo;s engines, and an especially nice novelty that i\u0026rsquo;ve never experienced before\u0026ndash;a girlfriend in the seat next to me\u0026ndash;all these things will more than likely assure my complete happiness during the entire travel stage of the trip. and i\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to it.\noh yeah, if you\u0026rsquo;re wondering if anything else interesting happened today, nothing did. i packed some, did laundry, ate (and our dining hall was odd\u0026ndash;with kids dressed up as dragons and about 15 billion people milling around\u0026ndash;i don\u0026rsquo;t know what the heck is going on), went to the wall, and that\u0026rsquo;s about it. and now the weezer party.\nand that is that. if you\u0026rsquo;re into praying, pray for safety in all the flights i, my family, and emily will be on.\nso, with that, i take my leave. i look forward to an awesome international trip, some sweet time with god, relaxing time to read, opportunities to talk with emily face to face, time to chill with my family\u0026hellip;a host of such good things. and i look forward to recounting the highlights. goodbye until monday, and god bless.\nlive music in the room: untitled new half-written weezer-like emo-pop song | mikey lee\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/travel-love-adventure/","summary":"\u003cp\u003einteresting fact of the day #1: two of the campus\u0026rsquo; biggest weezer fans are in my room right now playing weezer covers. you might wonder why. i do too.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewell, we\u0026rsquo;re at T-8 hours and counting till dan takes me to the airport. if you\u0026rsquo;re wondering what books i\u0026rsquo;m taking to accompany me in my travels, here they are:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eattic greek (textbook)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ea mathematical introduction to logic (textbook)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ewarranted christian belief, by philosopher alvin plantinga\u003c/p\u003e","title":"travel ?= love + adventure"},{"content":"the irony of this morning is that it started off so well. i woke up five minutes before my alarm (9:55am) and shut it off so that it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t buzz and wake up dan. i\u0026rsquo;d gotten an easy 8 hours of relaxing sleep, lulled to that state by the tale of beren and luthien being read out of my speakers. after waking up, i laid in bed and read two chapters from 2 corinthians. feeling like i\u0026rsquo;d started the day off well i climbed down from my bunk and performed my morning ritual: turn on monitor, wipe eye-boogers away, check e-mail, and check IM messages accrued over the night.\nbut today was different\u0026ndash;parked in the top left corner of the screen was a little window, flashing ever so helpfully. it had the little icon of an alarm bell and the words \u0026ldquo;9:45am, Tuesday 2/12 - eye doctor appointment, Stanford eye clinic\u0026rdquo;. it didn\u0026rsquo;t click for a minute and then i remembered, i DID have an eye doctor appointment! and i was already 15 minutes late.\ni woke up dan and asked for his keys, threw on a hat and a shirt and full sprinted the quarter mile to the car. i started driving and it was only another quarter mile when i realized i needed to take off the parking break. you can tell that it was early. once i felt capable enough to handle driving, i pulled out the cell and called the eye clinic, praying that the appointment lady was having a good day.\nin fact, she wasn\u0026rsquo;t\u0026ndash;she told me that, i\u0026rsquo;m sorry, but i\u0026rsquo;d have to reschedule. this was no good, so i asked her if she wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mind just asking the doctor if he could still fit me in. i think she put me on hold a bit just to get some revenge, but in the end she said to come on in, they\u0026rsquo;d take me. thanking god, i fought the traffic all the way in, just barely refraining myself from purposely rear-ending this one idiot lady who stole a parking spot i had my blinker on for in the parking garage. i can\u0026rsquo;t deal with that kind of inconsideration.\nbut, eventually i made it there and into the examination room. the doctor had to check out my left eye, so he dilated it. i\u0026rsquo;ve had my eyes dilated plenty of times (twice in one day, once), but never just one eye. it was very weird\u0026ndash;my brain couldn\u0026rsquo;t decide whether it was too bright outside or not. and when i got home and looked in the mirror, i kind of looked like one of those guys with a glass eye, because my eyes looked nothing alike. it made me yearn for that day when i\u0026rsquo;ll get to have one of those bionic laser gun eyepieces over my left eye. it\u0026rsquo;s cool, because not only do you look like a 21st century pirate, you have a laser gun on your eye.\nthe sad part about this awesome story is that, because my eye appointment started late and got out late, i missed my only class of the day. which i\u0026rsquo;m not allowed to do, since he keeps roll, and i didn\u0026rsquo;t e-mail him an excuse yesterday (like being sick or something) that would justify my missing class.\non the flipside, i was able to eat a leisurely lunch and hang out a bit before coming to work. i\u0026rsquo;m actually at work now, bored to tears. i\u0026rsquo;ve done all the homework i can stomach, and i\u0026rsquo;ve still got an hour before i can leave. i suppose i could work on the project that i\u0026rsquo;m doing (designing a Flash 5 workshop) but i don\u0026rsquo;t feel like it. so i\u0026rsquo;m blogging.\ni hate the word blog. i don\u0026rsquo;t know any super pleasant words that either begin with bl- or end with -og. well now that i think about it there are some decent words that start with bl-, like the Blarney stone. but i hold to the other part, about -og. the words i can think of that end in -og are smog, fog, grog, bog, dog, log, jog, gulog (that\u0026rsquo;s not a real word), and bizzog. see, no pretty words.\ni\u0026rsquo;m leaving for london in 16 hours. it will rock hard. maybe even 2 rocks, or a supermegazord rock. but that might be pushing it. in any case, i won\u0026rsquo;t be able to blog until i get back on monday or whenever, so for those of you who are now addicted to my blog, i apologize. addict yourself to something else for the time being. i recommend computer games or good fantasy/sci-fi novels.\neverybody had better kiss someone on valentine\u0026rsquo;s day.\ndisc on spin: i might be wrong | radiohead\n(in particular the live version of spinning plates is really good)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/whoops/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe irony of this morning is that it started off so well. i woke up five minutes before my alarm (9:55am) and shut it off so that it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t buzz and wake up dan. i\u0026rsquo;d gotten an easy 8 hours of relaxing sleep, lulled to that state by the tale of beren and luthien being read out of my speakers. after waking up, i laid in bed and read two chapters from 2 corinthians. feeling like i\u0026rsquo;d started the day off well i climbed down from my bunk and performed my morning ritual: turn on monitor, wipe eye-boogers away, check e-mail, and check IM messages accrued over the night.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"whoops"},{"content":"hey, i think i\u0026rsquo;m the farthest ahead in my philosophy of knowledge class right now than i\u0026rsquo;ve ever been in any class whatsoever. if i want i don\u0026rsquo;t have to do any work until next tuesday morning. that\u0026rsquo;s phenomenal!\nbible study with the dudes was cool, but beav\u0026rsquo;s out of town so we just chilled in tresidder. and it didn\u0026rsquo;t last that long, so i went from there to the wall around 8:30. i climbed for about an hour and a half, but i think i\u0026rsquo;ve plateaued a bit, relatively speaking. speaking in relative terms, is what i mean. but only relatively so. still can\u0026rsquo;t get the 6 i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on. it\u0026rsquo;s too easy to lose my feet in the overhang and swing out to where it\u0026rsquo;s impossible to have a good hold. ah well.\nby the way if any of you are wondering what the numbers are when i talk about climbing, well, there are a lot of different numbers, but the ones i\u0026rsquo;ve used so far refer to the Stanford Bouldering grading system. so all the routes on the bouldering wall (where i usually work) are marked SB0 - SB12 or so. SB0 is like butt easy, and anything above 9 can generally only be done by one or two people, including the guy who set the route. i\u0026rsquo;ve completed all the 0s-4s, one of the 2 5s, and none of the 6s. but that will come in time, my pretty.\ni had a pretty difficult talk with emily on the phone today. i have just been continually (in the past few days) impressed with the need to give over our relationship to god\u0026hellip;and that\u0026rsquo;s very hard. it\u0026rsquo;s hard because in the end it means that what i want is, more or less, irrelevant to the big picture. it means that, even if i happen to feel like it one day, i can\u0026rsquo;t really just out of the blue break up with her. and it means that, even if i happen to feel like it, it\u0026rsquo;s not my place to tell her things like \u0026lsquo;sure, we\u0026rsquo;ll end up together\u0026rsquo;. and i think everyone who has been in a romantic relationship knows that both extremes of feeling are bound to occur at some point. so saying to god that he has control over what i do with my relationship, and i don\u0026rsquo;t, isn\u0026rsquo;t the most natural of things to do. but in the end i think it\u0026rsquo;s the best. after all, divorces i think happen for two reasons: one, that the couple was never meant to be with one another, and two, they were, but temporary disagreements ballooned into major schisms and that was that. i think that relying on god is the only way to avoid both of those errors. i will avoid the first, hopefully, because if emily and i are not meant for each other, i trust god will make that clear eventually to both of us, and then we shall move on to better things that he has for us. or if it is a good idea for us to be together, only by drawing off of god\u0026rsquo;s constancy will i ever have a hope of not letting ill-timed bad emotions ruin a relationship.\ni think the difficulty is that for the first time i am seeing with my own eyes that either option is a live one\u0026ndash;i have no clue if emily and i are meant for each other. i\u0026rsquo;d like for it to be that way, but i don\u0026rsquo;t really know at this point. and since i decided to give up, in a sense, my overall opinion, i am waiting on the father to let me know. and we [emily and i] talked about that. and it did not make her happy.\ni\u0026rsquo;m sad that she\u0026rsquo;s not happy, but i feel that if i\u0026rsquo;m going to be consistent with my beliefs, that step of giving my romantic relationships over to god (along with everything else in my life) is a necessary one.\nand i guess if there\u0026rsquo;s anyone who\u0026rsquo;s not going to make a mess of things it\u0026rsquo;s god. so yeah, please don\u0026rsquo;t make a mess of things, god. thanks.\nand that\u0026rsquo;s the day in review. tomorrow will be busy with class and work and packing, and then i\u0026rsquo;m off to sail the skies, cozily situated with book in hand and headphones in ears.\ndisc on spin: world renown for romance | denison marrs\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/fair-sentiments-at-least/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ehey, i think i\u0026rsquo;m the farthest ahead in my philosophy of knowledge class right now than i\u0026rsquo;ve ever been in any class whatsoever. if i want i don\u0026rsquo;t have to do any work until next tuesday morning. that\u0026rsquo;s phenomenal!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ebible study with the dudes was cool, but beav\u0026rsquo;s out of town so we just chilled in tresidder. and it didn\u0026rsquo;t last that long, so i went from there to the wall around 8:30. i climbed for about an hour and a half, but i think i\u0026rsquo;ve plateaued a bit, relatively speaking. speaking in relative terms, is what i mean. but only relatively so. still can\u0026rsquo;t get the 6 i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on. it\u0026rsquo;s too easy to lose my feet in the overhang and swing out to where it\u0026rsquo;s impossible to have a good hold. ah well.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"fair sentiments, at least"},{"content":"i generally feel like each day is better than the previous one. why, then, do i long for the \u0026ldquo;good old times\u0026rdquo;? what are the good old times, anyway? i believe that in my mind, i distill away the day-to-day monotonies and evils of the past, leaving me with the feeling that everything before now was halcyon. especially with good book series. i look at the pendragon cycle sitting on my shelf and the memory of the wonderful journey that series took me on makes me want to be again in the time in which i read it. weird. same with awesome cds.\nbut back to the point\u0026ndash;each day is better than the previous one. a lot of times, yeah, that\u0026rsquo;s the case, and today is no exception. more hopeful, brighter\u0026hellip;.whatever the reason.\ni went to greek fully prepared, for once, which was nice. i had a good lunch talking with shella about utilitarian ethics, and my own particular deontological ethic. she\u0026rsquo;s thinking about majoring in philosophy now, all because i suggested to her last quarter that she take phil10. that\u0026rsquo;s a little scary.\nafter lunch i did my homework for tomorrow, which involved reading an article by H.H. Grice on classical foundationalism and the theory of the sense-datum. i then wrote a small summary of it and am contemplating getting one more day ahead even, since my next reading is only 5 pages long. also, i fell asleep while reading the paper, because it was pretty boring. that was nice.\nand that is all folks.\nvirtual disc on spin: effortless ep | jonathan lipps\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/good-ol-yore/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei generally feel like each day is better than the previous one. why, then, do i long for the \u0026ldquo;good old times\u0026rdquo;? what are the good old times, anyway? i believe that in my mind, i distill away the day-to-day monotonies and evils of the past, leaving me with the feeling that everything before now was halcyon. especially with good book series. i look at the pendragon cycle sitting on my shelf and the memory of the wonderful journey that series took me on makes me want to be again in the time in which i read it. weird. same with awesome cds.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"good ol yore"},{"content":"nothing quite emulates a yo-yo like a heart. which is why they are not to be trusted\u0026hellip;but can they be ignored?\ni suppose the day was productive, and if Productive-\u0026gt;Good, then it was a good day as well. all i did was work on greek, interspersed with various, random activities. one of the more interesting activities was practicing a long climbing route in the room. you see, most climbing ropes aren\u0026rsquo;t longer than, say, 150 feet or so. this means that if you want to attempt a climb which is longer than that, you have to use the leap-frog technique\u0026ndash;climber x belays climber y, to an anchor near the point where the rope will no longer reach. he secures the anchor, then belays climber y as he comes up to climber x (this is done by use of a few simple knots and an extra carabiner). once climber y reaches the anchor, climber x continues to belay as climber y reaches the next bombproof anchoring point. then climber y locks off, and sets up a belay from his position. repeat until both parties reach the top. you might wonder how dan and i practiced this in our room. it was with his bed.\nserena came over to have me change her strings today, but i ended up breaking her bridge pins instead (well, 2 of them). i felt really bad\u0026ndash;however, they would have broken anyway, whenever she tried to change her strings, whether i did it or not. still, she does have a performance on wednesday, and now she has to go out and find bridge pins. sigh.\nspent some time hanging with the draw group for an hour and a half tonight\u0026hellip;a bit of quality time never hurt a draw group. we talked about lots of stuff, but ended with a moderately warm discussion on the philosophical implications of certain passages in ephesians and elsewhere.\nsadly, all the work and whatnot did cramp my style a little bit\u0026ndash;i didn\u0026rsquo;t get to do a number of things that i wanted to today. i wanted to call emily, to work on some songs, to finish the greek campaign in empire earth, to go running, to work out, to read my logic, and to clean my room. none of which happened. oh well, maybe i\u0026rsquo;ll have time soon. time\u0026ndash;too often kairos and not chronos. i feel it running through my fingers much too quickly. come back!\ni guess i\u0026rsquo;m feeling a bit sad at the moment. don\u0026rsquo;t know why. i sat in the shower forever, zombie-faced, and every thing i thought about made my heart heavier than the last. not the best way to end the day, but maybe it\u0026rsquo;s a sign that the day should be ended. no sense in digging up too much worry and strife for myself when tomorrow will call it up again on its own.\nwhy is it so hard to be what i am created to be? if my purpose is to glorify god, why don\u0026rsquo;t i? i run after so many things.\nbe glorified, father.\nvirtual disc on spin: self-titled split ep | my spacecoaster\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/a-heavy-heart/","summary":"\u003cp\u003enothing quite emulates a yo-yo like a heart. which is why they are not to be trusted\u0026hellip;but can they be ignored?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei suppose the day was productive, and if Productive-\u0026gt;Good, then it was a good day as well. all i did was work on greek, interspersed with various, random activities. one of the more interesting activities was practicing a long climbing route in the room. you see, most climbing ropes aren\u0026rsquo;t longer than, say, 150 feet or so. this means that if you want to attempt a climb which is longer than that, you have to use the leap-frog technique\u0026ndash;climber x belays climber y, to an anchor near the point where the rope will no longer reach. he secures the anchor, then belays climber y as he comes up to climber x (this is done by use of a few simple knots and an extra carabiner). once climber y reaches the anchor, climber x continues to belay as climber y reaches the next bombproof anchoring point. then climber y locks off, and sets up a belay from his position. repeat until both parties reach the top. you might wonder how dan and i practiced this in our room. it was with his bed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"a heavy heart"},{"content":"yesterday was an all-around good day. a rather important day for dan\u0026ndash;he and i went out to palo alto, and he bought his first pipe. now, you have to understand: for avid c.s. lewis and j.r.r. tolkien fans, (lewis and tolkien were both pipe smokers) there is a special aura about the idea of pipe smoking that transcends the pleasant aroma itself. my pipe is actually from oxford itself, from a little shop on a street where no doubt tolkien and lewis strolled, speaking about the things we now consider them great for, leaving behind wistful trails of blue and grey.\nafter our jaunt out to PA, i settled in to work the rest of the afternoon. i spent a few hours translating sentences into greek (\u0026ldquo;It is better to fill the sea with triremes in order to prevent the enemy ships from attacking the city.\u0026rdquo;), and a while getting halfway caught up with my logic reading. it was saturday, though, so i let myself do some relaxing things as well: i called emily for a while, and we talked about london and how fun that will be. so between work, calling the girlfriend, dinner, and reading some in a rock climbing book i\u0026rsquo;m borrowing from dan, the day passed quickly.\naround midnight dan and i dressed up as old men, gathered up our pipe-related gear, and went down to the quad. there we sat, and talked, and smoked, and looked up at jesus on the facade of memorial church. in another corner of the quad someone was playing a three-stringed instrument, reminiscent of the banjo but not quite so twangy or american. the stars were bright, the night was cold, crisp, and clear, and the smoke curled pleasantly in the air before evaporating into nothingness\u0026ndash;a reminder of how brief our lives here on earth must be to god.\nback at home dan and i readied ourselves for bed, and fell asleep listening to the stories of the Darkening of Valinor, and the Flight of the Noldor\u0026ndash;classic pieces of Tolkien\u0026rsquo;s mythology, told in the Silmarillion. thinking the day perfect, i went to sleep.\nand sleep i did, until 1pm today. i\u0026rsquo;m quite disappointed that i missed church; however, the sleep was very much needed, since i doubt i will get any for the next two weeks, what with traveling, jet lag, makeup work, and all. also, being so refreshed has given me that rare feeling of desiring to do my homework and get caught up in my classes. so i should capitalize on that as best i can and see how much work i can get done tonight.\nthe day being thus set out for me, i take my leave.\nvirtual disc on spin: new way to be human | switchfoot\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/hero-worship/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eyesterday was an all-around good day. a rather important day for dan\u0026ndash;he and i went out to palo alto, and he bought his first pipe. now, you have to understand: for avid c.s. lewis and j.r.r. tolkien fans, (lewis and tolkien were both pipe smokers) there is a special aura about the idea of pipe smoking that transcends the pleasant aroma itself. my pipe is actually from oxford itself, from a little shop on a street where no doubt tolkien and lewis strolled, speaking about the things we now consider them great for, leaving behind wistful trails of blue and grey.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"hero-worship"},{"content":"i cannot write while listening to the flight of the noldor. so captivating and sorrowful.\ngood night.\ndisc on spin: J.R.R. Tolkien, read by Christopher Tolkien\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/feanors-oath/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei cannot write while listening to the flight of the noldor. so captivating and sorrowful.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003egood night.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003edisc on spin: J.R.R. Tolkien, read by Christopher Tolkien\u003c/p\u003e","title":"feanor's oath"},{"content":"mostly i just wish emily was here. it\u0026rsquo;s not right that i should be able to have a fun night of dining and dancing without her. or, what i mean is, that irrespective of our desires, the possibility of her being my date was blocked. this is no fun, because dances and such are that much more fun with someone you can be \u0026lsquo;romantic\u0026rsquo; with.\nalso, when people go to dances, i think they degrade themselves about 5 or 6 steps. i rarely see the naturalist\u0026rsquo;s assumption that humans are merely animals proven more handily than by going to a social dance and watching the whole floor get \u0026lsquo;freaky\u0026rsquo;. i just can\u0026rsquo;t believe that we even keep up the facade of a dance\u0026hellip;it\u0026rsquo;s obviously not the dancing itself that most people enjoy, because if you turned on the lights, people would leave and flow to wherever it\u0026rsquo;s dark and start making out. your average dancegoer is so focused on their own carnality that the dance is merely an excuse to get some modicum of sexual gratification. how pitiful.\ngeneralizations are generalizations, and not axioms. so don\u0026rsquo;t misquote me on that last bit.\nall the same i had a wonderful night. it felt good to forget about myself and get to know my date a little bit. she was already my friend, but i hadn\u0026rsquo;t talked to her all that much before, and there is something refreshing about getting to know people decently for the first time. 4 of my drawmates and i took our dates to Il Fiorno\u0026rsquo;s, a pretty high-class italian restaurant in palo alto. i got glorified velveeta shells and chicken, for the low low price of $14. but whatever, i don\u0026rsquo;t do nice dress up things often, so i can handle that. everyone had a great time, and while the conversation generally centered on some weird or random thing, it was all to the greater good and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.\nthe dance itself was like i described above, though i would add loud. anyway, while the rest were salivating over each other, our group of 10 enjoyed ourselves as much as possible getting our respective grooves on. man i rocked out, and i think if i\u0026rsquo;d had my dancing skills back in high school i would have\u0026hellip;gone to more dances or something. who knows.\nsooner or later, though, i\u0026rsquo;m always overcome by the thought that everyone just looks so silly. it just always looks like some big joke to me. a big sad joke. all these people, trying to look like they are dancing their hearts out, but really just ending up looking like they are trying. the music does not move me emotionally, and my feet are not moved by my spirit. so eventually i feel like a complete hypocrite. what am i trying to do, and who am i trying to impress? i guess i\u0026rsquo;m having fun, but i\u0026rsquo;d rather be sitting with the posse by lake tokamogie.\nand when that wave passes through me, i usually feel like it\u0026rsquo;s time to take a break. but i can\u0026rsquo;t take a break for too long, because the only thing to do at loud dances is dance, and it\u0026rsquo;d be rude to leave my date and friends and do my own thing. so i tell myself not to think too much like a philosopher\u0026ndash;after all, everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves, maybe if i just start moving i\u0026rsquo;ll get into it.\nand so the cycle goes. but enough of dances.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve decided that i need to write an entry on my theory of blogging. what is a blog? what is it for? does it serve a valid purpose? what is legitimate to write in a blog? should it really be public? what\u0026rsquo;s the difference between art and journal? what\u0026rsquo;s pretentious and self-absorbed about blogs? is it even worth the time to read other peoples\u0026rsquo; blogs? whom do i write for? is a blog an enhancement of life or a hindrance to it?\nbeing a philosopher, i need to validate what i am doing here, and i feel like i need to validate my answers to the above questions in response to criticisms i have heard from some. but that\u0026rsquo;s just an overview\u0026ndash;sometime in the next few days i\u0026rsquo;ll sit down and actually think about the issue.\nthis quarter has continually surprised me. what a weird, blessed, amazing, mediocre, fulfilling, empty, crazy life i have. and the thing with lives is i don\u0026rsquo;t understand yours and you don\u0026rsquo;t understand mine. not yet anyway.\nvirtual disc on spin: big blue sky | bebo norman\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/sotos-screw-your-roommate-2002/","summary":"\u003cp\u003emostly i just wish emily was here. it\u0026rsquo;s not right that i should be able to have a fun night of dining and dancing without her. or, what i mean is, that irrespective of our desires, the possibility of her being my date was blocked. this is no fun, because dances and such are that much more fun with someone you can be \u0026lsquo;romantic\u0026rsquo; with.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ealso, when people go to dances, i think they degrade themselves about 5 or 6 steps. i rarely see the naturalist\u0026rsquo;s assumption that humans are \u003cem\u003emerely\u003c/em\u003e animals proven more handily than by going to a social dance and watching the whole floor get \u0026lsquo;freaky\u0026rsquo;. i just can\u0026rsquo;t believe that we even keep up the facade of a dance\u0026hellip;it\u0026rsquo;s obviously not the dancing itself that most people enjoy, because if you turned on the lights, people would leave and flow to wherever it\u0026rsquo;s dark and start making out. your average dancegoer is so focused on their own carnality that the dance is merely an excuse to get some modicum of sexual gratification. how pitiful.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"soto's screw your roommate 2002"},{"content":"5 hours of solid, no-break work later, and i\u0026rsquo;ve finished part I and turned it in\u0026ndash;i was right\u0026ndash;i didn\u0026rsquo;t even have time to look at part II, so it went down the drain. down the drain to spain. i\u0026rsquo;ll take you down to chinatown.\ni need food.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/and-i-did-sort-of/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e5 hours of solid, no-break work later, and i\u0026rsquo;ve finished part I and turned it in\u0026ndash;i was right\u0026ndash;i didn\u0026rsquo;t even have time to look at part II, so it went down the drain. down the drain to spain. i\u0026rsquo;ll take you down to chinatown.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ei need food.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"and i did, sort of..."},{"content":"i can\u0026rsquo;t put it off any longer\u0026hellip;i have 4 hours to finish my problem set. it will probably take me at least that long to do part I. i guess part II is just going to go down the drain. oh well, hopefully it won\u0026rsquo;t affect things too much.\nmy habit with school work is to be a few hours ahead in my mind, when i have whatever i\u0026rsquo;m working on done. so i tend to daydream about how nice it is that i have an end in sight, and that whether i finish the assignment or not, it will be over and done with. this tends to make me a little more lax about actually trying and getting really good grades, because i\u0026rsquo;m just so excited about not having to think about it anymore.\ni guess that\u0026rsquo;s bad.\nvirtual disc on spin: ghost of david | damien jurado\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/finish-it/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei can\u0026rsquo;t put it off any longer\u0026hellip;i have 4 hours to finish my problem set. it will probably take me at least that long to do part I. i guess part II is just going to go down the drain. oh well, hopefully it won\u0026rsquo;t affect things too much.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003emy habit with school work is to be a few hours ahead in my mind, when i have whatever i\u0026rsquo;m working on done. so i tend to daydream about how nice it is that i have an end in sight, and that whether i finish the assignment or not, it will be over and done with. this tends to make me a little more lax about actually trying and getting really good grades, because i\u0026rsquo;m just so excited about not having to think about it anymore.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"finish it!"},{"content":"if xA* = xAT || xAF, show that x |= xA*\nand that\u0026rsquo;s only the first part of the problem\u0026ndash;logic is, if i may say so\u0026ndash;hard as crap. and i worked on it for the last three hours, bringing the clock to 12:30. now i have a choice: do greek or not do greek. i have to be up at 8:30, and my greek would probably take me a good 1.5-2 hrs to do completely. i suppose i\u0026rsquo;ll just go to bed.\ncrusade was different tonight\u0026ndash;we had some guest speakers come in to talk about \u0026lsquo;relationships\u0026rsquo;. what they really talked about was sex. at first i thought it might be like one of those talks you get at high school on why abstinence is the only 100% safe course, blah blah blah. i didn\u0026rsquo;t expect that they would talk about anything really that out of the ordinary, especially in the mixed setting of the large group meeting. but, they destroyed my expectations, that\u0026rsquo;s for sure. not only did they talk about sex (insisting, as i suspect myself, that it is great fun, and even greater fun in the correct context), they talked about masturbation, porn, and other things of the same nature usually left completely taboo. the shock value was pretty funny\u0026ndash;people were melting down all over the room (\u0026ldquo;why are they talking about THIS??\u0026rdquo;). i think the best point they made, though, was in discussing the non-physical aspects of sex, i.e., the mental, emotional, and spiritual things that go along with the physical act. the biggest picture painted by society is that it is a purely physical act, and so it is only the phyical considerations (stds, whatever) that we have to be concerned about. but, if there are mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects to sex (and i am told convincingly that there are), then society is indeed misleading in its portrayal of what is really an altogether sacred thing, and in some ways completely different than what is in the images we are bombarded with. society sucks.\nneedless to say, i admired the audacity of the couple who spoke, being completely honest and open about themselves and the world as they see it. and i think that the world as they see it needs to be the way more of us (myself included) see it.\nahem, enough talk about sex. (can i talk about sex in a blog? who reads this? what if my mom is reading this?) don\u0026rsquo;t want to make the junior highers embarrassed.\nof course, the meeting went longer than usual, because people had questions and whatnot (that\u0026rsquo;s what sex talks do). worship went well though, and alex and ann and i played beautiful, by mercyme. i sang. i wasn\u0026rsquo;t, but it was beautiful. unlike what usually happens, i was actually able to close my eyes, forget about my voice, forget about the guitar, forget about the people, and sing to god. that\u0026rsquo;s why i do music, my friends. it felt like a good sigh, and i could feel some of the frost that has been covering my heart and mind begin to evaporate a little. my exact thought-picture at this moment is that of Narnia when the witch\u0026rsquo;s spell of winter began to lose power. couple that with the image of Cronos in the Silver Chair, sleeping beneath the ground, and you have my state of mind/heart at the moment. with the thaw i feel that soon something will begin to awake, stirring restlessly (like the sleeping lords in Voyage of the Dawn Treader), regaining circulation. it seems just as if there is a switch in my mind simply waiting to be turned on, but i can\u0026rsquo;t myself reach it.\nwell, if i haven\u0026rsquo;t lost you with the Lewisian references there\u0026hellip;.\ntomorrow will be a day of pain and suffering, as i\u0026rsquo;ll be spending lunchtime onward working until 5 on my logic problem set. i am not looking forward to that. hopefully it will all be out of my system by 8, when we\u0026rsquo;re heading out to dinner before screw your roommate. i can\u0026rsquo;t help but think what a rotten date i would be if, still in logic mode, i responded to \u0026ldquo;how do you like your pasta?\u0026rdquo; with \u0026ldquo;ExEy(isMe(y) \u0026amp;\u0026amp; isPasta(x) \u0026amp;\u0026amp; likes(y,x))\u0026rdquo;\nright. well that\u0026rsquo;s officially the \u0026lsquo;i need sleep\u0026rsquo; indicator flashing on my monitor, up to the right where you can\u0026rsquo;t quite see it, so au revoir.\nvirtual disc on spin: low level owl, i\u0026amp;ii | the appleseed cast\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/sex-and-logic/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eif xA* = xAT || xAF, show that x |= xA*\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eand that\u0026rsquo;s only the first part of the problem\u0026ndash;logic is, if i may say so\u0026ndash;hard as crap. and i worked on it for the last three hours, bringing the clock to 12:30. now i have a choice: do greek or not do greek. i have to be up at 8:30, and my greek would probably take me a good 1.5-2 hrs to do completely. i suppose i\u0026rsquo;ll just go to bed.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sex and logic"},{"content":"i now know everything there is to know about iDVD, the mac application used to burn dvds of your own videos. i spent the last few hours writing an instruction guide on getting a movie from your camera to a DVD, and it\u0026rsquo;s not that hard. the dvds themselves tend to suck, but hey, it\u0026rsquo;s a dvd. hardly anyone really burns their own.\nin any case, i didn\u0026rsquo;t miss class this morning. in fact, i woke up an hour and a half early to do my reading for it. aren\u0026rsquo;t i a conscientious student? class itself wasn\u0026rsquo;t bad\u0026ndash;we did an overview of the epistemological theories we\u0026rsquo;ve surveyed so far, and as a class generated a lot of focused thesis topics. the only real grade for the course is the final paper, so we\u0026rsquo;re gearing up and starting to think of what we really care about writing 4,000 words on. i\u0026rsquo;m thinking of maybe doing something on the circularity in coherence theories, or maybe theories of justification. who knows.\ni didn\u0026rsquo;t think it was going to for any reason, but it\u0026rsquo;s raining today. this is less than optimal, because my back bike tire has been flat (due to slashing) for about a month, leaving me with just my longboard. and when it\u0026rsquo;s raining, i can\u0026rsquo;t ride it or i\u0026rsquo;ll mess it up. so i have to walk everywhere, and that\u0026rsquo;s really slow. ah well.\nnothing really interesting is going on, and i\u0026rsquo;m not having any real profound thoughts, so i\u0026rsquo;m gonna get back to doing some work. and dreading my logic problem set.\ndisc on spin: electric boogaloo | five iron frenzy\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/idvd-and-epistemology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei now know everything there is to know about iDVD, the mac application used to burn dvds of your own videos. i spent the last few hours writing an instruction guide on getting a movie from your camera to a DVD, and it\u0026rsquo;s not that hard. the dvds themselves tend to suck, but hey, it\u0026rsquo;s a dvd. hardly anyone really burns their own.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ein any case, i didn\u0026rsquo;t miss class this morning. in fact, i woke up an hour and a half early to do my reading for it. aren\u0026rsquo;t i a conscientious student? class itself wasn\u0026rsquo;t bad\u0026ndash;we did an overview of the epistemological theories we\u0026rsquo;ve surveyed so far, and as a class generated a lot of focused thesis topics. the only real grade for the course is the final paper, so we\u0026rsquo;re gearing up and starting to think of what we really care about writing 4,000 words on. i\u0026rsquo;m thinking of maybe doing something on the circularity in coherence theories, or maybe theories of justification. who knows.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"iDVD and epistemology"},{"content":"dan and i just watched \u0026rsquo;the way of the gun\u0026rsquo;. it had benecio del toro and some old guy who plays the exact same character in lots of other movies. films do some weird things to me. first of all they consume my mind and my thoughts for at least a few hours after watching. especially if the film is one where there is thinking involved, or some epic conclusion. like, dumb and dumber leaves no impact, whereas movies like gladiator make me want to sit, ponder, and cry for a few hours.\ni can\u0026rsquo;t decide what i think, though, about this particular film i just watched. i know that i didn\u0026rsquo;t like it, if wanting to see it again is a measurement of liking. it had that sort of tint to it that desperado, traffic, and some other films had. maybe it\u0026rsquo;s the connection to mexico, who knows. although memento sort of had this too. in any case, i think that style of filmmaking leaves me feeling a little empty inside. there is never triumph, there are always too many bodies on the ground, and usually there is some philosophical subtheme that the writer tries to bring out at the end that i completely disagree with.\nall the same, these films rekindle my hatred of evil and killing. i\u0026rsquo;m usually left wondering if things like this really go on, and if so, how humanity got so screwed up and what can i do to fix it. in that sense, then, the result could be said to be positive. like\u0026ndash;holocaust pictures shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be shown to children, but they should be shown, to strengthen people\u0026rsquo;s resolve against mass murder. i highly doubt these films are made with that in mind, but eventually my thoughts go down that path. anyways.\nin recent news, i have a date for SYR this friday. dan got me one. and since he did, we made a deal and told each other who our dates are. i\u0026rsquo;m sorry for those of you who voted against this decision\u0026ndash;in getting me a date dan acquired some leverage. so, dan and i are going with two wonderful ladies, melanie and shannon (respectively). i guess we\u0026rsquo;ll see how it turns out! i know it will be fun.\nin more recent news, it is 2 am again, so i need some sleep. out.\nno sound waves are in the air.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/the-way-of-the-gun/","summary":"\u003cp\u003edan and i just watched \u0026rsquo;the way of the gun\u0026rsquo;. it had benecio del toro and some old guy who plays the exact same character in lots of other movies. films do some weird things to me. first of all they consume my mind and my thoughts for at least a few hours after watching. especially if the film is one where there is thinking involved, or some epic conclusion. like, dumb and dumber leaves no impact, whereas movies like gladiator make me want to sit, ponder, and cry for a few hours.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"the way of the gun"},{"content":"one pleasant schedule-altering anomaly: i played tennis this afternoon. and, when i say pleasant, i don\u0026rsquo;t really mean pleasant so much as not that pleasant. sure it was fun, but i sucked. even by my standards (which as most can tell you are pretty low). and, as most can also tell you, i am one of the sorest losers you\u0026rsquo;ll ever meet. mostly with card games, but it has extended gradually to cover most forms of competition. it\u0026rsquo;s never bad if i know from the outset i\u0026rsquo;m going to get whooped (rather, know from the outset that i deserve to get whooped due to the skill level of my opponent). but if i feel like i could be doing better, then i get pretty pissed. in cards it\u0026rsquo;s even worse because in most games there\u0026rsquo;s an element of chance and without fail i will be dealt the worse cards possible. you might think i am exaggerating, but that is because your coherence theory of knowledge in this instance has been unable to cope with my anomaly.\nin any case the thing i like most about tennis is running fast and getting a decent workout, neither of which happened today (it was a very slow-paced game). which is fine, but since my speed is about my only natural ability in the sport, my teeth were pulled. so maybe i was able to work on the rest of my game\u0026ndash;mmm\u0026hellip;.not really. or maybe i\u0026rsquo;m just whining. i can deal with that. it\u0026rsquo;s my blog after all, and it\u0026rsquo;s you\u0026rsquo;re fault that you are reading. you\u0026rsquo;re probably procrastinating, too, which makes things worse. i would say shame on you, if i weren\u0026rsquo;t procrastinating right now.\nin all seriousness, if you are a newcomer to the blog you may want to consider cautiously whether or not you really want to make it a habit of reading this. you\u0026rsquo;ll probably realize sooner or later that i am really a pretty big jerk, lazy, a little egotistical, not all that funny; you\u0026rsquo;ll probably realize to your horror that i am not the perfectly crafted paragon of human virtue and beauty you thought i was. so, as they say, ignorance is bliss\u0026ndash;if ye are of that faint-hearted ilk, i beseech ye, proceed nae further lest thy lives be ruined by mine.\na little overdramatic, but that\u0026rsquo;s just to scare away the under-18 crowd.\ni had a really long dinner. most of it was spent in a daze. you see, i was too lazy to focus my eyes. like\u0026ndash;there was just nothing that i really cared looking at enough to warrant me using energy to focus my eyes. so it was funny when i was talking to anybody, because with my eyes focused at infinity, their eyes seemed to meld together into one, reminding me of cyclops.\nin other news: remember when i gave you the list of groceries last night? well, you\u0026rsquo;ll notice that i listed peanut butter and jelly. but like solid bachelors dan and i forgot bread. so, if any of you twain dwellers would be so kind as to steal me a loaf of that white buttermilk bread from stern dining, it would be much appreciated!\nyeah, they didn\u0026rsquo;t invite me to play at sophomore night at the coho this quarter. i just found out today they are having sophomore night this wednesday, and they invited my friends back to play, but not me. that made me a little sad, because i thought people liked it the last time i played. oh well. it\u0026rsquo;s probably for the best, because i would have had to say no anyways (going to london). but it still hurt that they didn\u0026rsquo;t ask. ok, enough pity party. i don\u0026rsquo;t write music for other people anyway. at least not people who don\u0026rsquo;t like it. (this i find is a good rule of thumb\u0026ndash;don\u0026rsquo;t do things for people that don\u0026rsquo;t like those things)\nstill no word on my date for friday. i think dan\u0026rsquo;s working on it. i guess i don\u0026rsquo;t really care if i get one or not, except everyone else has one so i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want to go out to dinner with them. it\u0026rsquo;d be weird. it might be fun, though, if i get a date, whether it\u0026rsquo;s a friend of mine (so that i can hang out with her\u0026ndash;because i haven\u0026rsquo;t hung out with anyone in a long time), or not (i haven\u0026rsquo;t met anyone new in a long time too). so i guess my ambivalence is nice, because i\u0026rsquo;m fine either way.\ni spent most of work today trying to figure out how to burn a DVD. it\u0026rsquo;s pretty cool. but because of that i wasn\u0026rsquo;t able to sneak in any homework, and so i\u0026rsquo;ve gotten absolutely nothing done today. and so i have two readings for knowledge tomorow which i have to read and write about. sucky. guess i should do them. i don\u0026rsquo;t really have any excuses\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ve got the whole night in front of me. \u0026hellip;must\u0026hellip;pry\u0026hellip;self\u0026hellip;from\u0026hellip;keyboard\u0026hellip;\u0026hellip;\noh and keep the comments coming. they make me happy. think of each comment as one scooby snack for the blog. (don\u0026rsquo;t personify the blog, jonathan. ok jonathan)\nvirtual disc on spin: good dog bad dog | over the rhine (format for this will always be \u0026ldquo;album | artist\u0026rdquo;, unless otherwise noted. and, \u0026lsquo;virtual disc\u0026rsquo; just means i\u0026rsquo;ve taken my cd and ripped it to my computer, and that\u0026rsquo;s how i\u0026rsquo;m listening to it. in case you were wondering. i make the distinction so you know exactly what sound quality i\u0026rsquo;m exposed to at the moment. i rip 128kbps .wma files)\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/proceed-nae-further/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eone pleasant schedule-altering anomaly: i played tennis this afternoon. and, when i say pleasant, i don\u0026rsquo;t really mean pleasant so much as not that pleasant. sure it was fun, but i sucked. even by my standards (which as most can tell you are pretty low). and, as most can also tell you, i am one of the sorest losers you\u0026rsquo;ll ever meet. mostly with card games, but it has extended gradually to cover most forms of competition. it\u0026rsquo;s never bad if i know from the outset i\u0026rsquo;m going to get whooped (rather, know from the outset that i deserve to get whooped due to the skill level of my opponent). but if i feel like i could be doing better, then i get pretty pissed. in cards it\u0026rsquo;s even worse because in most games there\u0026rsquo;s an element of chance and without fail i will be dealt the worse cards possible. you might think i am exaggerating, but that is because your coherence theory of knowledge in this instance has been unable to cope with my anomaly.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"proceed nae further"},{"content":"i swear i didn\u0026rsquo;t mean to sleep through logic. but that\u0026rsquo;s what happens when attendance is not required. even so, i\u0026rsquo;m awake for greek so in some possible world that makes up for it.\nkalimera (that\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;good day\u0026rsquo; in greek).\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/sleep-is-awesome/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei swear i didn\u0026rsquo;t \u003cem\u003emean\u003c/em\u003e to sleep through logic. but that\u0026rsquo;s what happens when attendance is not required. even so, i\u0026rsquo;m awake for greek so in some possible world that makes up for it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ekalimera (that\u0026rsquo;s \u0026lsquo;good day\u0026rsquo; in greek).\u003c/p\u003e","title":"sleep is awesome"},{"content":"the day was long, so the night will be short. short nights are no fun, but a necessary evil if you want to make the days as fun as possible. this inverse relation has always bothered me.\nan out of the ordinary occurrence: i went out to dinner tonight. some people cooked for me and some friends. the food was good, and it was good times. at the very least it was nice to get away from the lemon chicken.\ni climbed fairly strong at the wall tonight. the place was pretty empty, which was nice, but those who were there were some of the wall\u0026rsquo;s elite\u0026hellip;so i felt a little intimidated. but, i threw down on the 5 i\u0026rsquo;ve been working on for a while\u0026ndash;cleaned it up professionally. the rest of the night i spent toying with a 6, which, when i get it, will be my first 6. but i can tell that i\u0026rsquo;ll have to get a little more strength before i can pull some of the moves on the route. or maybe i was just weak from not climbing for\u0026hellip;4 days or so.\nsecond out of the ordinary occurrence of the night: dan and i made a midnight run to safeway. safeway\u0026rsquo;s a very odd place at night\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s basically just you and the night employees, and they all have the big carts of cardboard boxes in the aisles, cereal boxes strewn over the floor, inventoring or whatever else they are doing. all the same i tend to think of it as having a sort of festival air..mysterious, though\u0026ndash;only open to initiates\u0026hellip;those who shop at ungodly hours. at any rate quite a haul was had\u0026hellip;chex mix, peanut butter, jelly, instant flavored oatmeal, eggos, sunkist, dried apples, to name a few of the goods. as a side note, i would like to mention that as i strolled down the bottled drink section, my heart was wrenched once more as the painful reality of wilbur dining\u0026rsquo;s evil overpricing came crashing down on me. but i didn\u0026rsquo;t let it stop me. no sir.\nthere were a few things, however, that i was not too happy with today. one was my obsessive reloading of my own blog page. even though in my mind i knew that it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t change unless i posted something new to it, i clung to the hope that my blog somehow transcended that necessity. it is very odd how a simple collection of words can seem suddenly to take life and become an organism. but then again, a blog can have at most derived intentionality\u0026ndash;not even being a simple turing machine, no one, whatever their philosophical leanings, would say that blogs have minds. yet it is hard to escape the hope that your words will somehow become better than they are solely in virtue of the fact that here they are, for the world (a small subset of it, anyway) to read. this is the closest things to my thoughts being interactive that i have experienced, and so the errors are easily fallen into\u0026ndash;that of mistaking the blog for more than a tool (i.e. making it an end simpliciter), for example. let us all pray that wisdom will prevail in this too.\nthe other few things were simply that i didn\u0026rsquo;t get a whole lot of work done. it\u0026rsquo;s kind of like, after doing 39 mindless yet difficult verb/participle complete identifications, i don\u0026rsquo;t feel like going the other direction on 20 more problems. so that was the death of my greek work. the irony is that in the time it\u0026rsquo;s taken me to write this much, i could have been halfway done with the remainder of the work. the irony in the last sentence is that even if i weren\u0026rsquo;t writing this blog i wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be doing greek.\ni\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about love a little more recently. i\u0026rsquo;ll let you know when i\u0026rsquo;ve figured it out. (this may not be for a billion years) most people say they can\u0026rsquo;t understand romantic love. me neither. however, for all i think i know, i\u0026rsquo;m pretty sure that i understand god\u0026rsquo;s love even less. and this is not a hopeful thought. let\u0026rsquo;s change a billion to a trillion.\nin recent news, it\u0026rsquo;s bedtime. far past, actually. it would have been nice to get more than 6 hours of sleep. alas, \u0026ldquo;duty is heavier than a mountain, [sleep] lighter than a feather\u0026rdquo;. if you know the real version of that quote you are cool, in a nerd sort of way.\nfor the interactive part of the blog, does anybody care about my word of the day? not that i care\u0026ndash;i do it so that i have an excuse to learn my vocabulary. does anybody even have a clue what it is?\ni\u0026rsquo;ll steal a one-liner from jason\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;ve \u0026lsquo;said far too much\u0026rsquo;. good night.\nvirtual disc on spin: sink or swim, waterdeep\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/blogs-with-minds-are-taking-over/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe day was long, so the night will be short. short nights are no fun, but a necessary evil if you want to make the days as fun as possible. this inverse relation has always bothered me.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ean out of the ordinary occurrence: i went out to dinner tonight. some people cooked for me and some friends. the food was good, and it was good times. at the very least it was nice to get away from the lemon chicken.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"blogs with minds are taking over"},{"content":"aha, i found out who our mysterious visitor was. well, sort of. i resolved the ip to a block of addresses in oviedo, fl. hmm\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s where i\u0026rsquo;m from. so it could be any member of my family, since they all connect through the same dsl ip. so, thanks\u0026hellip;dav/rach/mom/dad.\noh yeah, let\u0026rsquo;s have a vote\u0026ndash;who thinks that i should tell dan who i got to go to the dance with him, and who thinks i should keep it a surprise? click on comments down at the bottom of this post to leave your vote.\nvirtual disc on spin: clarity, jimmy eat world\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/dan-got-a-date/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eaha, i found out who our mysterious visitor was. well, sort of. i resolved the ip to a block of addresses in oviedo, fl. hmm\u0026ndash;that\u0026rsquo;s where i\u0026rsquo;m from. so it could be any member of my family, since they all connect through the same dsl ip. so, thanks\u0026hellip;dav/rach/mom/dad.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eoh yeah, let\u0026rsquo;s have a vote\u0026ndash;who thinks that i should tell dan who i got to go to the dance with him, and who thinks i should keep it a surprise? click on comments down at the bottom of this post to leave your vote.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"dan got a date!"},{"content":"yes\u0026ndash;i got dan a date. a date for the dance on friday. the screw your roommate dance. for those of you who don\u0026rsquo;t go to stanford, that means that roommates get dates for each other (i.e. they SCREW them. har har). but, i didn\u0026rsquo;t screw dan, really\u0026ndash;i got him a very nice date, and i think they will have much fun.\nnow i\u0026rsquo;m just a little hesitant about who dan might be asking for me. i\u0026rsquo;m sure i will have fun whoever it is, but i\u0026rsquo;d still rather have emily in the same state as me, to go to dances with and stuff.\nin other news, the sexual health peer resource center is hosting a valentine\u0026rsquo;s day event entitled \u0026rsquo;love sucks\u0026rsquo;. i find this very in line with everything else i know about the SHPRC. because, for real, what does love have to do with sex? [sarcasm should be evident here. it\u0026rsquo;s the biting, accusatory kind]\nwe\u0026rsquo;ve had some small room modifications here in soto 101. first, i moved my desk lamp up on top of my wardrobe, so that i can use it to read books with before i go to bed at night. i find this a very profound change, because it will alter my daily schedule significantly. now, either i must plan around reading in my bed, or i will get less sleep. so who knows how that will turn out, but i hope for the best. secondly, we\u0026rsquo;ve acquired a very nice piece of installation art and put it on the floor by the refridgerator. and if you weren\u0026rsquo;t an art buff like me, you might actually think it\u0026rsquo;s a tray, plate, glass, and fork from wilbur dining, replete with week-old lemon chicken and rice. but that\u0026rsquo;s only if you\u0026rsquo;re stupid.\nthe trash needs to go out. the trash always needs to go out. i guess that\u0026rsquo;s what happens when they give you freakin small trash cans.\noh yeah, i\u0026rsquo;d like to give a shout out to all those who have viewed my blog recently. thanks for reading! you know who you are: (in order of most recent visit) me, tina, bryan, emily, [someone using sprint], chris n, eric, and alex. you guys rock. and if you are our mysterious sprint telephone line user and care to identify yourself, no harm will come to you, i promise.\nvirtual disc on spin: so impossible, dashboard confessional\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/love-sucks/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eyes\u0026ndash;i got dan a date. a date for the dance on friday. the screw your roommate dance. for those of you who don\u0026rsquo;t go to stanford, that means that roommates get dates for each other (i.e. they SCREW them. har har). but, i didn\u0026rsquo;t screw dan, really\u0026ndash;i got him a very nice date, and i think they will have much fun.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enow i\u0026rsquo;m just a little hesitant about who dan might be asking for me. i\u0026rsquo;m sure i will have fun whoever it is, but i\u0026rsquo;d still rather have emily in the same state as me, to go to dances with and stuff.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"love sucks"},{"content":"i love it when we have nice days here. i am such a wuss that the cold and rain really gets to me, makes me depressed, not wanting to go to class or do anything else. now, i like my rainy days for sure, but when i\u0026rsquo;m inside reading, with no obligations to the outside world. and you might think it odd that i feel that way when i\u0026rsquo;m here. \u0026ldquo;you\u0026rsquo;re in california! there\u0026rsquo;s no where better to be!\u0026rdquo; this is quite possibly true. however, it still gets a little too cold for my liking in winter quarter. the past few days have been great, though\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;m no judge of temperature but i\u0026rsquo;d say highs in the 60s or maybe even low 70s.\none thing i wish though, is that my room was on the other side of the dorm. well, not really\u0026ndash;you don\u0026rsquo;t have a view of anything from that side. so instead i wish that out of my window i looked east. i love sunrises. and i love to see the light change throughout the day. but since my room is in a fairly shaded area, in a little corner of the dorm, the room is never bright and filled with light. maybe in the summer when the sun moves back to its normal track we will have some more sun. and i suppose i\u0026rsquo;m inconsistent because i like the fact too that i can sleep late with no intrusive glare.\nwell now i am going to read the word a little and then eat, before running off to work.\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/inessential-thoughts-on-weather/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ei love it when we have nice days here. i am such a wuss that the cold and rain really gets to me, makes me depressed, not wanting to go to class or do anything else. now, i like my rainy days for sure, but when i\u0026rsquo;m inside reading, with no obligations to the outside world. and you might think it odd that i feel that way when i\u0026rsquo;m here. \u0026ldquo;you\u0026rsquo;re in california! there\u0026rsquo;s no where better to be!\u0026rdquo; this is quite possibly true. however, it still gets a little too cold for my liking in winter quarter. the past few days have been great, though\u0026ndash;i\u0026rsquo;m no judge of temperature but i\u0026rsquo;d say highs in the 60s or maybe even low 70s.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"inessential thoughts on weather"},{"content":"one of my favorite things is an unexpected holiday. and, i sometimes have quite a few of these, because i almost always forget when we have a monday off. there\u0026rsquo;s nothing that feels better than to realize on sunday, after you have been stressing out over whatever work and reading you have to do, that your worries and fears are unfounded because you actually don\u0026rsquo;t have class on monday!\nnow, tomorrow is not a monday, but it is sort of an unexpected holiday, because i just remembered that my knowledge class (phil 184) is cancelled for tomorrow. it\u0026rsquo;s even in the syllabus. so that makes me happy.\ni had bible study tonight at bv\u0026rsquo;s apartment. it brought up a lot of good questions which hopefully i\u0026rsquo;ll have time to ponder about over the next week. the focus of the study was the early life of jacob. the stories are simple, and maybe a little quirky, unless you look deeper. if you look deeper, you find yourself in a whole mess of questions. at the very least you\u0026rsquo;ll notice some definitely personal traits of god. for instance (and this is all in Genesis 27 or thereabouts) i wonder about rebekah and jacob. rebekah heard from god that jacob would rule over esau (=get the birthright/blessing). so why did rebekah and jacob resort to deception to actually get jacob the blessing? if you say that this was the method god chose to give jacob the blessing, you have to ask yourself: is god the cause of deception? i\u0026rsquo;m not sure i want to say that. and jacob comes off as such a jerk\u0026ndash;demanding esau\u0026rsquo;s birthright for a simple bowl of stew. some possible words of jesus come to mind about feeding the hungry out of love. so\u0026ndash;jacob is downright mean (and sure esau takes the bait and is diminished in spirit, displaying his true character, but this does not necessarily excuse jacob), isaac is downright disobedient of god\u0026rsquo;s supposed wish (that jacob receive the blessing) in desiring to give the blessing to esau, rebekah is deceptively crafty, and esau is whiny and \u0026lsquo;godless\u0026rsquo; (hebrews 12). first of all, it amazes me that god would pick such a nice group of people to establish his invasion into the world. but, i guess the new testament puts this into a better perspective: (my paraphrase) \u0026lsquo;do you think that esau and jacob had done anything good or bad in the womb? but before they were born god chose jacob, to demonstrate his election, not by works, but by grace\u0026rsquo;. so, of course jacob didn\u0026rsquo;t deserve to be put over esau any more than he was a good person (smart and crafty, but certainly with an eye only for himself). ah, but grace (understood retroactively here) changes everything, and makes clear why god would seem to bless jacob for deception\u0026ndash;he\u0026rsquo;s not blessing jacob for the deception, and the blessings are not the result of jacob\u0026rsquo;s deception or craftiness\u0026ndash;but instead they are simply the result of god\u0026rsquo;s undeserved favor. and now i suppose the point should be obvious as should be the reason the author of hebrews chose this old testament passage to talk about.\nthis blog business is taking up too much time, certainly. but perhaps it will be useful to myself and/or others.\noh, and if you\u0026rsquo;re wondering what the funny characters are at the top, they read va suran tela -- \u0026lsquo;almost there\u0026rsquo; (lit. i\u0026rsquo;m almost there \u0026ndash; it\u0026rsquo;s illegal not to have a verb in a sentence in enaselvai).\nand with that i am out for the night, possibly to play guitar or read or watch a movie to celebrate my freedom tomorrow morning.\ncountdown to london trip: T-8 days.\nvirtual disc on spin: kid a, radiohead\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/holidays-and-theology/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eone of my favorite things is an unexpected holiday. and, i sometimes have quite a few of these, because i almost always forget when we have a monday off. there\u0026rsquo;s nothing that feels better than to realize on sunday, after you have been stressing out over whatever work and reading you have to do, that your worries and fears are unfounded because you actually don\u0026rsquo;t have class on monday!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003enow, tomorrow is not a monday, but it is sort of an unexpected holiday, because i just remembered that my knowledge class (phil 184) is cancelled for tomorrow. it\u0026rsquo;s even in the syllabus. so that makes me happy.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"holidays and theology"},{"content":"well i just had lunch with nick bott at \u0026rsquo;el toro\u0026rsquo;. el toro is an eating club for toyon residents here at stanford. it was actually pretty cool\u0026ndash;it had the ambience of a semi-run-down mexican food restaurant, with some lively mexican polka beats emanating from the kitchen. in any case, it made me realize once again how screwed over i am by wilbur dining, with their points and their overpriced entrees. here\u0026rsquo;s just a brief outline of my complaint:\n1. we are required to buy one of three meal plans\u0026ndash;Lite, Regular, or Premium, which are all about $80 in price difference\n2. depending on the meal plan, we get a certain number of points for the quarter. i have the Lite plan, so i have 894 points for the quarter\n3. some data: 1 point = $1.33. and 894 points equates to about 6 points per meal, if i eat twice a day.\n4. entrees range from 3.50 points to 7 points. this, in dollars, is $4.66 to $9.31. a 16oz fountain drink adds $1.26.\n5. i definitely should not have to pay $10 to get a medium sized meal and a drink. but this is very easily possible.\n6. the dining hall also sells commercial items, like snapple, yoplait yogurt, whole fruit, etc\u0026hellip;\n7. a larger-than-12-oz-bottled-drink, i.e. Snapple, Nantucket Nectars, IBC, etc\u0026hellip; is 2.45 points. this is $3.26. $3.26!!! at Safeway, a local, expensive grocery store, one bottle of the exact same snapple costs $1.39. the dining hall price is 2.3 times the market price! and why could this be? OPERATING COSTS?? all they have to do is take the bottles off the truck and put them on the shelf. 0 hardship.\n8. this is completely unacceptable.\nso, i find it horribly unjust that we are forced by the university to be uneconomical. furthermore, the university is not even consistent: not everyone suffers under the extortion of dining services. it is only because i am in Soto, a wilbur dorm, that i am subject to this treatment. what compounds things is that i did not even CHOOSE wilbur\u0026ndash;a bad draw number limited my choices to the extent that i was virtually forced in here. and, even if it is argued that i did choose wilbur, at the time the choice was made wilbur was not on a points system, and they changed over to this system without my, or any student\u0026rsquo;s, input. apparently it is not enough for the university to charge us obscene amounts of money for tuition; they must also want to squeeze us dry of money that, if left to us, could feed a whole family for a quarter.\nthis is my complaint, and i\u0026rsquo;m going to the top with it. dining services, you\u0026rsquo;re out there, and i will get you.\ndisc on spin: raw materials, mars ill\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/fight-the-man/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ewell i just had lunch with nick bott at \u0026rsquo;el toro\u0026rsquo;. el toro is an eating club for toyon residents here at stanford. it was actually pretty cool\u0026ndash;it had the ambience of a semi-run-down mexican food restaurant, with some lively mexican polka beats emanating from the kitchen. in any case, it made me realize once again how screwed over i am by wilbur dining, with their points and their overpriced entrees. here\u0026rsquo;s just a brief outline of my complaint:\u003c/p\u003e","title":"fight the man!"},{"content":"the last thing i want to do right now is study greek. but i do like this one sentence i just read: \u0026ldquo;epibouleuomen toi basilei\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;we are plotting against the king\u0026rdquo;. if there was a king around i think i\u0026rsquo;d plot against him, just for kicks.\ntalked to emily for a while today. things are getting better, i think. i just wish my feelings would get themselves in order\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s not like them to be opposed to me as they have been recently. feelings don\u0026rsquo;t control the mind right? the mind controls the feelings. or so it\u0026rsquo;s always been. so with this conflict i don\u0026rsquo;t know how much weight i should lend feelings, when they have no basis in anything but themselves. and yet they are what you most closely and immediately perceive, because you are FEELING them. but unless they validate themselves sometime soon i sure as heck am not going to listen to them when they say absurd things.\nwell. i\u0026rsquo;m praying that that situation will work itself out in the next week and a half before the trip to london. i get excited thinking about that\u0026ndash;the trip. i need to travel; it\u0026rsquo;s in my blood.\nif i\u0026rsquo;m not going to get any work done i might as well play computer games. out.\nnow playing:\nthe well\npedro the lion\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/epibouleuomen-toi-basilei/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ethe last thing i want to do right now is study greek. but i do like this one sentence i just read: \u0026ldquo;epibouleuomen toi basilei\u0026rdquo;\u0026ndash;\u0026ldquo;we are plotting against the king\u0026rdquo;. if there was a king around i think i\u0026rsquo;d plot against him, just for kicks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etalked to emily for a while today. things are getting better, i think. i just wish my feelings would get themselves in order\u0026ndash;it\u0026rsquo;s not like them to be opposed to me as they have been recently. feelings don\u0026rsquo;t control the mind right? the mind controls the feelings. or so it\u0026rsquo;s always been. so with this conflict i don\u0026rsquo;t know how much weight i should lend feelings, when they have no basis in anything but themselves. and yet they are what you most closely and immediately perceive, because you are FEELING them. but unless they validate themselves sometime soon i sure as heck am not going to listen to them when they say absurd things.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"epibouleuomen toi basilei"},{"content":"almost there* atleast in my dreams when i\u0026rsquo;m sleeping\nit seems that the needle is full endlessly but you\nkeep on waking me i\u0026rsquo;m almost there it\u0026rsquo;s on the tip\nof my tongue and it never goes away it never comes\nto stay the chances are slight that i won\u0026rsquo;t shoot up\ntonight but the sensation that\u0026rsquo;s waiting beneath is\na kick in the teeth\n\u0026ndash;david bazan\n","permalink":"https://blog.jlipps.com/2002/02/almost-there/","summary":"\u003cp\u003ealmost there* atleast in my dreams when i\u0026rsquo;m sleeping\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eit seems that the needle is full endlessly but you\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ekeep on waking me i\u0026rsquo;m almost there it\u0026rsquo;s on the tip\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eof my tongue and it never goes away it never comes\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eto stay the chances are slight that i won\u0026rsquo;t shoot up\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003etonight but the sensation that\u0026rsquo;s waiting beneath is\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ea kick in the teeth\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ndash;david bazan\u003c/p\u003e","title":"almost there"}]