A few thoughts

I don't usually use this blog for personal reflections, but it's two in the morning, and why not? First of all, a song:

I'm beginning to realize the extent to which comfort plays a dominant role in my decision-making process. I still live with my parents, despite being a senior in university, because it's comfortable. I haven't pushed myself to make close friends at school, because that's uncomfortable. I stuck stubbornly to my plans of going straight to graduate school next fall because school is comfortable. I haven't committed to learning to how to drum, or how to play bass, because really - it's uncomfortable to stretch myself. And I certainly haven't chased any big dreams. It's natural to shy away from what's unfamiliar, but that impulse is tied to fear - fear of the unknown, fear of mistakes, fear of failure.

But fear is the mind killer, and a life that isn't lived boldly isn't much of a life. Radical, life-changing moments don't happen when you're sitting on your couch, they happen when you're out pushing yourself, and the limits of the possible. I'm not content with an average life.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." - Cecil Beaton

"But the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture past them into the impossible." - Arthur C. Clarke

"Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no whenever you don't want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you are doing here. Believe in kissing." - Eve Ensler

"Who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight... men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And in all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect." - Hebrews 11:33-35, 38-40.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear (timidity), but of power and love and discipline." - 2 Timothy 1:7

Music to hum to

Some sweet, mellow jams.

The writing process

Unfortunately, this is all too accurate: How to Write a Paper in College.

Titanic

This article discusses the latest revelation in the story of the sinking of the Titanic, and touches on the difficulty of drawing lessons from that event.

"The Cold Truth," by Morgan Meis

Jazz and film

No such thing as too much Miles:

Also no such thing as too much Bergman.

This book is not just about a whale

Whoever poisoned my mind by saying Moby-Dick wasn't worth my time was dead wrong.

"At first they are overawing; their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintance. All this struck me as mighty singular; yet upon second thoughts, there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn that is - which was the only way he could get there - thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to himself."

What's stuck in my head

Can't get enough of Dessa. This song could be my anthem, which is why it's the one I'm linking, but I also highly recommend The Chaconne and Mineshaft II. And the whole album, really.

Soccer and politics

Recommended: Football Against the Enemy, by Simon Kuper.

Neat exploration of the relationship between a global sport and global politics. I hope someday I get grant money to go do research as fun as this.

Underappreciated

This band shouldn't be overlooked.

Essay - politics and religion

Suggested reading: one of my favorite essays, The Politics of God by Mark Lilla. Sketches the path of the development of western thought, and the relationship between religion and politics in our familiar paradigm. Woven throughout is a neat discussion of the philosophical differences between East and West, and why that especially matters in the modern context, when America has put interactions with the Middle East on the top of the priority list.

Excerpt: A little more than two centuries ago we began to believe that the West was on a one-way track toward modern secular democracy and that other societies, once placed on that track, would inevitably follow. Though this has not happened, we still maintain our implicit faith in a modernizing process and blame delays on extenuating circumstances like poverty or colonialism. This assumption shapes the way we see political theology, especially in its Islamic form — as an atavism requiring psychological or sociological analysis but not serious intellectual engagement. Islamists, even if they are learned professionals, appear to us primarily as frustrated, irrational representatives of frustrated, irrational societies, nothing more. We live, so to speak, on the other shore. When we observe those on the opposite bank, we are puzzled, since we have only a distant memory of what it was like to think as they do. We all face the same questions of political existence, yet their way of answering them has become alien to us. On one shore, political institutions are conceived in terms of divine authority and spiritual redemption; on the other they are not. And that, as Robert Frost might have put it, makes all the difference.