The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
John Donne, Meditation XVII
via Wikisource
***
It is one year ago today that Papa died. I thought that also on this blog I wanted to post a tribute. Rather than sketch him as a father or as a person, which is self-indulgent and also bound to fall short of his true self, unless the description is lucky or very detailed; and rather than quote him in his own words — it's a tough task to find these, since he was modest in their use; I have fallen back on the above excerpt of a sermon from a 16th-to-17th-century English poet and clergyman.
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Thursday, May 10, 2018
U-Bahn Reading: Intersecting Book Spheres
In the past week I've unexpectedly wanted to write a great deal, after feeling like there was not a single sentence in me for days. It has been an inconvenience because I've written and therefore tended to go to sleep far later than ordinary. In every other respect, however, I feel rather smug about it. Also, in the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn I am managing to read books from front cover to back cover with astonishing speed, and also feel, frankly, smug about that.
Much of my fear of losing the motivation and help to explore fields of knowledge in detail, now that I am no longer studying, has been banished. Reading on my own — and letting the events and the pressure of work and news-reading, to some degree, illustrate or lend brilliancy to the reading — works. Also, the interdisciplinary mixture and meetings of fields at unexpected junctures that I enjoyed during the happiest years at university, when I had time and energy to take any course or visit any lecture my heart desired, exists again whenever I read multiple books.
As for what I am reading, Joseph Roth's reporting from the 1920s skirts the edges of the world of Federico García Lorca; Aristotle's Politics and Augustus's Res Gestae dig into the same uncertainties and questions that the governments under whom Roth and Lorca were forced to live, attempted to address in their own ways.
And in these books there is a hidden or revealed preoccupation with who is the 'Untermensch' in any relevant state, and if the state treats them well. Of course Augustus, for example, is not famed for a bleeding-heart philosophy about his meekest subjects. But what he doesn't say about vanquished peoples and about the underclass in Rome (proper and greater) speaks for itself too.
Voltaire jumps back and forth between old and modern history, philosophy, human geography, and also political and social observation, and in his way observes bits of the worlds of all the other books.
The astrophysics textbook, I'll admit, is largely sealed in its own world, although the significance of the advances in nuclear and other physics in the first half of the 20th century (and their political and social effects) rings through the text quietly but firmly. I am also reading a modern Greek educational novel that I already read in university and that I would not classify as much of a 'text.'
But even the books that are less robust or detailed are instructive because of the footnotes in the editions I've happened to come across. The Greek book is educational because it is written in Greek and I need to expand my knowledge for the sake of knowledge and because of my new Greek colleague!
***
Earlier today I've hopped briefly onto the piano and the violin — on the piano, a Scarlatti sonata and Spanish dances by Enrique Granados. On the violin I was cheeky and played bits and pieces of Bach's violin concerto in E major. It was, of course, above my abilities although the notes themselves are not so hard to hit. I also interpreted a G major scale that was not entirely in key. And there was a visit from godfather M***. I haven't set foot outside the apartment yet, but I intend to. It's Ascension Day, after all, and due to the federal holiday, no other duties prevent it.
Much of my fear of losing the motivation and help to explore fields of knowledge in detail, now that I am no longer studying, has been banished. Reading on my own — and letting the events and the pressure of work and news-reading, to some degree, illustrate or lend brilliancy to the reading — works. Also, the interdisciplinary mixture and meetings of fields at unexpected junctures that I enjoyed during the happiest years at university, when I had time and energy to take any course or visit any lecture my heart desired, exists again whenever I read multiple books.
As for what I am reading, Joseph Roth's reporting from the 1920s skirts the edges of the world of Federico García Lorca; Aristotle's Politics and Augustus's Res Gestae dig into the same uncertainties and questions that the governments under whom Roth and Lorca were forced to live, attempted to address in their own ways.
And in these books there is a hidden or revealed preoccupation with who is the 'Untermensch' in any relevant state, and if the state treats them well. Of course Augustus, for example, is not famed for a bleeding-heart philosophy about his meekest subjects. But what he doesn't say about vanquished peoples and about the underclass in Rome (proper and greater) speaks for itself too.
Voltaire jumps back and forth between old and modern history, philosophy, human geography, and also political and social observation, and in his way observes bits of the worlds of all the other books.
The astrophysics textbook, I'll admit, is largely sealed in its own world, although the significance of the advances in nuclear and other physics in the first half of the 20th century (and their political and social effects) rings through the text quietly but firmly. I am also reading a modern Greek educational novel that I already read in university and that I would not classify as much of a 'text.'
But even the books that are less robust or detailed are instructive because of the footnotes in the editions I've happened to come across. The Greek book is educational because it is written in Greek and I need to expand my knowledge for the sake of knowledge and because of my new Greek colleague!
***
Earlier today I've hopped briefly onto the piano and the violin — on the piano, a Scarlatti sonata and Spanish dances by Enrique Granados. On the violin I was cheeky and played bits and pieces of Bach's violin concerto in E major. It was, of course, above my abilities although the notes themselves are not so hard to hit. I also interpreted a G major scale that was not entirely in key. And there was a visit from godfather M***. I haven't set foot outside the apartment yet, but I intend to. It's Ascension Day, after all, and due to the federal holiday, no other duties prevent it.
Sunday, May 06, 2018
A Work-Related Tiger Turns Out to Be a Paper Tiger
Last weekend I was extremely stressed after an impossibly large workload was piled onto my team of five. I had to balance the training of a new colleague and answering of questions from within my team, with the regular daily tasks, surprise questions and requests from colleagues in other teams, and tasks associated with entering new clients' merchandise into our database.
After talks with angelically patient family members during the weekend, I drew up a mental list of observations and potential solutions to the situation. Keeping in mind Papa's advice on preparing presentations for school or university, I tried to have a list of keywords or main points that were most important to me, that should be mentioned. On Monday I asked the higher-ups in the company who set my team's tasks to meet with me, which they kindly did. And, much to my surprise, they agreed with what I said and also cleared up points that much reduced the feeling of pressure.
(Another colleague, whom I regard a bit as the older brother I never had and whom I'd asked for advice about the whole scenario, sat in on the meeting to assist if it was necessary. That was also very kind.)
I was afraid before the meeting that the large workload may have happened because I'd done something wrong, like my time management. But it seemed that my time management was, for once, not the main problem.
Therefore I was euphoric on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday — unlike in Canada where I guess the spectrum of Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and self-declared Socialism has less of a foothold, May 1st is a federal holiday here and we had the day off — I calmed down again. Since then I've been still stressed but happy.
After talks with angelically patient family members during the weekend, I drew up a mental list of observations and potential solutions to the situation. Keeping in mind Papa's advice on preparing presentations for school or university, I tried to have a list of keywords or main points that were most important to me, that should be mentioned. On Monday I asked the higher-ups in the company who set my team's tasks to meet with me, which they kindly did. And, much to my surprise, they agreed with what I said and also cleared up points that much reduced the feeling of pressure.
(Another colleague, whom I regard a bit as the older brother I never had and whom I'd asked for advice about the whole scenario, sat in on the meeting to assist if it was necessary. That was also very kind.)
I was afraid before the meeting that the large workload may have happened because I'd done something wrong, like my time management. But it seemed that my time management was, for once, not the main problem.
Therefore I was euphoric on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday — unlike in Canada where I guess the spectrum of Communism, Marxist-Leninism, and self-declared Socialism has less of a foothold, May 1st is a federal holiday here and we had the day off — I calmed down again. Since then I've been still stressed but happy.
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