Looking at my blog posts, I realized that they naturally came in different periods or phases. The 2019 posts were one, then there were those from 2020 - 2021, and then those from 2021 - 2022. In spring of 2022, I decided to deliberately create a phase, which I called a "blog chapter", this being the fourth one.
I think the previous three were things that arose spontaneously and in response to my own needs, while this fourth one was premeditated and a bit artificial. Somewhat like doing a year of school.
This chapter has been about the "exilic-familial", among other things. I explored themes of nation, culture, family, childhood, and education. These topics connect to a vision that I had before officially starting the blog chapter (or, I was hypomanic and wrote something), about "cultural altruism", a path for those trying to do good through culture or in cultural areas, articulating with art, religion, humanities, politics, and effective altruism and especially its "Long Reflection" idea. When we try to govern the world, we are, and should be, informed by nation, culture, family, childhood, and education.
Two specific cultures were themes, Jewish (especially as I best know it, from the Old Testament), and Indonesian. Jewish culture is a family of holiness, and also has a history of enduring exile. I saw in Judaism (at least in the Old Testament itself) a kind of honesty coming out of having lost, and the idea of not winning and that being a route to peace and holiness. I saw in it families broken and reconciling.
Indonesian culture is (to me) about syncretism and unity-in-diversity, as well as a connection to Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Indonesia is a nation that attempts to pull together diverse groups, and which has a history of mixing religions. (I didn't really explore these themes in depth, but only discussed Indonesia a little.)
The war in Ukraine and the polarization of US politics are in the background.
This chapter, written in about seven months if you include the cultural altruism writings drafted in March and April, surprisingly (to me) is in the same order of magnitude of number of words as the three preceding chapters combined, about 20% less. I keep feeling like I do the math wrong when I count (maybe somehow I do), but I think it's right. I didn't feel like I was working any harder when I wrote. Perhaps I was under the influence of hypomania? I clearly had it in late March, but maybe it continued in a non-obvious, attenuated form throughout the seven months.
I've felt different ways over the last few weeks. Sometimes depleted, sometimes not. I've thought about quitting or drastically cutting back on writing, and also going on full bore. I think what has been particularly hard has been working to finish this after I had already moved on from being into this blog chapter. I could use much of myself as usual to work, but not all of me.
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These are the books reviewed in this blog chapter. Links are to my reviews:
Holy Resilience, by David M. Carr, hardback (1st ed.?) ISBN 978-0-300-20456-8
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bantam Classic paperback, ISBN 0-553-21277-X
In the Shadow of the Banyan, by Vaddey Ratner, 1st hardback ed., ISBN 978-1-4516-5770-8
Between Man and Man, by Martin Buber, tr. Ronald Gregor Smith, Macmillan Paperbacks Edition, 1965, no ISBN
Creative Destruction, by Tyler Cowen, paperback, ISBN 0-691-11783-7
The Meaning of Marriage, by Timothy Keller (with Kathy Keller), hardback (1st ed.?), ISBN 978-0-525-95247-3
Along the Way, ed. Ron Bruner and Dana Kennamer Pemberton, paperback (1st ed.?), ISBN 978-0-891-12460-3
On the Genealogy of Morality, by Friedrich Nietzsche, tr. Carol Diethe, Cambridge edition, paperback (Revised Student ed.), ISBN 978-0-521-69163-5
Teaching Children to Care, by Ruth Sidney Charney, paperback (1st ed.?), ISBN 0-9618636-1-7
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