Naturally?

    I mowed the lawn today, but the mower ran out of gas about halfway through the lawn.  I checked the gasoline can to see if there were any fumes left that I could fan into the tank, but the can was empty as well.  I could have driven to the gas station to get some more but I figured I might as well just finish off the lawn with the weedwacker.  The effect was interesting.  The half near the street has a very uniform look with normal mown lines.  The section above it now has a natural pattern in it more like brush strokes than the standard layered look of a mowed lawn.  The juxtaposition of the natural and artificial patterns next to each other made me think about how we think of the word organic and how we call certain things natural and certain things unnatural and why we sometimes prefer one over the other.  Take food for example.  We like the idea of organic food.  I think it stems from the idea that we are what we eat, and we think of ourselves as natural creatures so we want our bodies to use natural minerals and chemicals to sustain itself rather than something formulated in a laboratory.  The funny thing is that anything made in a laboratory is made from natural ingredients, it has just been broken down into very small natural components and rearranged by humans, who in theory are also natural beings.  I think one of the most unnatural things that is fundamental to human life is the fact that we have built walls between ourselves and nature.  My guess is that anyone reading this is between four right now.  Houses are barriers to keep nature at a comfortable distance and we aren’t very happy when nature crosses that line.  I also spent a few minutes repelling an ant invasion in the kitchen today.  Dogs are a kind of emissary between the human and the natural, somehow they seem to speak our emotional language while retaining the label “natural.”  Haircuts are also interesting, and bring me back to the lawn.  Some people have very natural hair.  They might cut it, but for the most part they just let their hair fall naturally around their head.  Some people use ten different products simultaneously to get that businesslike, in control look.

    Anyway, one of the most fascinating things about nature as that I just can’t decide whether people are natural or not.  That’s why I think it’s a little funny that stuff made in labs and factories are the most unnatural things we can think of, because they were made with human ingenuity and we tend to think of human behavior as fairly natural and when we say someone is psychotic, we mean that they think or act unnaturally.  So there seem to be two kinds of nature.  The kind that’s the opposite of insanity and the kind that is the opposite of… well birds and trees and the sky.  Anyway, for my final paper in Western Lit. class I wrote about human nature and I figured that would make an easy blog post, especially since I had some extra thoughts on the topic today.  Dr. Lundin sent out the prompt for the essay two and a half hours before it was due, that way we didn’t have to spend a ton of time studying for it while we were trying to get ready for all our other finals.  Thank you Dr. Lundin.  I have a slight hesitation posting a paper I wrote for class on my blog.  Maybe it’s because it would be considered plagiarism to use something from a blog for a school assignment, and it just seems like the two shouldn’t mix.  Anyway, here it is in all its finals week madness, but perhaps there’s method in’t:

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Nature is a commonly used word that is surprisingly hard to define. It is easier to categorize things as natural or unnatural than to actually define the word. Trees and rocks fit pretty neatly into the “natural” category. Ghosts and demons generally fall into the “unnatural” category. The one thing that may be hardest to categorize is human beings, and even more specifically human nature. There are some things about humans that do not seem entirely natural. Human psychology is understood better now than ever before, but it is hard to believe that the entire function of the human mind can be whittled down to the firing of synapses. When someone is seen behaving strangely, someone may call it “unnatural.” But if humans are entirely natural, everything they do really is natural and there is no possible way for someone to act unnaturally. In Paradise Lost, Satan is disgusted with an uncorrupted state of nature and sets up his own definition of nature in a state of rebellion. As a result of this rebellion, both types of nature remain in conflict over human nature. For convenience I will refer to the two forms of nature as communal nature and independent nature. The conflict between them can be observed in human action.

This conflict between independent nature and communal nature is brought to a head in King Lear in which Edmund claims his independence from any claims on his loyalty and sets himself up as independently working to achieve his own advancement, while King Lear suffers for this new view of nature as he no longer receives the reverence that he considers natural. Edmund claims the side of nature in his first line in the play. The irony in this is that he was born out of wedlock and is considered an unnatural child. According to communal nature, having sexual relations outside of marriage is a form of breaking the faith of a marriage agreement. Therefore, according to the communal nature, Edmund is unnatural. Edmund is willing to be unnatural in the communal sense. However, he still claims nature as his goddess. Therefore, he must be thinking of some other kind of nature. “Why -------? wherefore base” he asks, “When my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous, and my shape as true as honest madam’s issue” (King Lear Act 1 Scene 2, lines 6-9). In his mind, because his physical features are not impaired, he is equally natural to his legitimate brother, and as he has sworn fealty to nature, he may even gain the upper hand. In the independent nature, rank and position are ends and not means. Independent nature does not give titles based on birthrights, it grants its honors to those who are willing to make use of nature’s tools and make their way up in the world by whatever gifts nature has given them such as strength and mental acuity.

King Lear’s daughters, Goneril and Regan also accept this new view of nature as an independent means to rank and wealth. Once their father has given them the keys to the kingdom, they lock him out of it. King Lear is literally left out in the cold as soon as he has given authority to his daughters. They do not see any reason to give aid to an elderly man who will be using their resources and undermining their authority. The fact that he is their father does not have any bearing on the subject. A few characters do cling to the communal view of nature. Edgar, Gloucester’s other son, guides his father once he is blinded. Gloucester risks his own position in order to give the king shelter. Cordelia, Lear’s daughter comes to Lear’s aid when he has been driven from his kingdom. Meanwhile Edmund, Regan and Goneril act unnaturally according to the communal nature. These characters act unnaturally according to the independent view of nature. In the communal sense, it is unnatural for Lear to be left in nature’s fury during a storm. In the independent sense, it is unnatural for Kent to retain loyalty to Lear after being banished by him. The two natures oppose each other and what is natural in one sense is unnatural in the other.

In Hamlet the two natures are harder to differentiate. Before the play even begins, Hamlet’s uncle aligns himself with the independent nature. He kills his brother, the current king, in order to take the position for himself. This leaves Hamlet in the uncomfortable duty of obeying his father by killing the king (his uncle). One question that may be haunting Hamlet as he tries to decide when and whether or not to take his vengeance, is which side of nature he would take by killing his uncle. In a sense, he would be advancing himself to the kingship by killing his uncle, and as a subject of the king, he owes loyalty to him. Regicide, especially of a relative clearly seems to be communally unnatural. On the other hand, Hamlet’s uncle has already turned his back on communal nature. If Hamlet did not kill his uncle, he would leave his duty to his father unfulfilled. As Hamlet ponders this predicament, he must be searching frantically for an option that does not require him to kill his uncle or live with the death of his father unavenged. Hamlet can escape nature entirely by ending his own life. In a sense, Hamlet’s life is no longer natural. His uncle has acted unnaturally, and Hamlet faces consequences because of it. Hamlet is now in an unnatural situation, which changes the status quo. Perhaps, in this situation, where there is no natural option, it would be more natural to end all his intercourse with this impossible nature and make his own life unnaturally short. Hamlet proclaims how deeply this condition disturbs him, “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world” (Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 2, Lines 129-134). Now he has three options. He must either live knowing that he has not fulfilled his natural duty to his father. Or he can betray his duty to his uncle and king by killing him. Finally he can end his own life and turn away from the conflict of nature, but in doing so will be turning his back on nature and God’s command.

Milton gives a perspective on the origin of this conflict in Paradise Lost. To begin with Satan has decided to reject God’s communal nature and engage in his own quest for an independent nature. He does succeed in achieving independence, but he is unable to take authority over God’s creation. When Satan hears that God is forming a new creation, he decides to go and see for himself. As soon as Satan enters the world he ponders the nature of humanity. He observes that they are “earthborn perhaps, not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright” (Paradise Lost, book 4 lines 360-361). He sees that they are in a state of communal nature. They submit to the position that God has placed them in, which means fulfilling their duties to God and to each other. Perhaps Satan finds this unbearable, because he sees the incredible beauty inherent in this relationship. He has given up his place in communal nature to strive towards his own independent advancement. This sacrifice has cost him dearly. Perhaps he could return to community, but that would be unnatural from the position of rebellion where he now stands. Rather than attempt some sort of return, Satan decides to implement his new form of nature in this unperverted world. He tempts Eve and Adam to step out of their positions in community into individual, independent natures. However, the old nature still remains in some form and so both natures strive for control over individuals and groups of individuals to determine their actions. Everyone must choose which nature to claim as their goddess, the independent nature or the communal nature.

Methodical Madness = Prosaic Poetry?

    I like books.  I like to say that I like all kinds of books.  In a sense that is true.  To be honest, I mostly like fiction, more specifically adventure fiction.  I like Arthur Conan Doyle about as much as any author.  It’s fast paced, easy to read and it makes me feel like I’m learning.  The funny thing is, I never know whether I’m learning facts or not.  Historical fiction can be pretty confusing because you never really know which facts are made up and which are real.  Are there really giant white monster whales?  Were there really peg legged captains of whaling ships?  How many harpoons does it take to kill a real whale?  Anyway, I have a little more trouble with some different genres.  For example, I like poetry, when I understand it, but I rarely understand it… [complete syllogism here].  I also have difficulty with non-fiction in general.  There are definitely some exceptions, Paul Johnson and Malcolm Gladwell have an enthralling narrative writing style.  However, a lot of non-fiction seems to be intended for textbook style information downloads.  Although, some textbooks actually do a pretty good job of presenting information.  Anyway, as I was reading Paradise Lost this weekend and thinking primarily of the reading quiz, I had an epiphany.  I’ve been looking for the wrong things in the wrong places.  There are two things that we get out of reading: knowledge and enjoyment.  Pleasure in reading comes from two sources in my experience.  One is narrative that creates empathy or a connection with characters whether real or imaginary.  The second is simple appreciation of skill in wordsmithing.  We like Hamlet because we understand indecision and because his soliloquies and images are humorous and meaningful.

    The purpose of textbooks is almost entirely informational.  Of course it is nice when the information presented is interesting, or when we enjoy an authors style or wit, but there’s a reason why professors have to assign reading quizzes for textbooks.  Poetry is primarily intended for enjoyment.  After reading a thousand words under the title “The Raven,” you might expect to know something about the bird’s anatomy, migratory patterns, lifespan and nesting habits.  That is, unless you just finished Edgar Allen Poe’s famed poem, in which case, you would know that Raven’s are eerie black fowl.  You might even have the impression that they have the gift of speech.  The nice thing about fiction is that most authors are trying pretty hard to keep the interest of their readers and also throw in some tidbits about something that is interesting.  You can learn a lot from a Tom Clancy novel as you worry about Jack Ryan’s adventures.

    Everything I’ve said so far is pretty obvious I guess, but my epiphany was that I’m disappointed when I don’t enjoy textbooks and I miss the beauty of poetry when I try to catch a few facts for a reading quiz.  Maybe I read textbooks too slowly and poetry too quickly.  When I read a textbook, maybe I should try to take in the most important information, spend extra time looking at facts, tables and equations and skip over some of the text that may not contain critical information.  On the other hand when reading poetry, I need to overcome the urge to quickly skim over it in order to check it off the “I’ve read that one” list or pass a reading quiz.  Time to give Milton another shot.

Yes, it’s true.

    My first post started by explaining how this blog was a sort of alternative to facebook for me to keep up with all my friends whom I don’t see in person while I’m at college.  I thought it was only fitting to announce here that I now have a facebook account.  I know I’ve held out for a long time, but my reasons for changing my mind now are probably not what you expect.  There’s a rather long story behind it, but I think that I gave in for a good reason.  I have been wanting to tell you all this story for a while, but never felt like I had the time to do it properly.  Now, in order to justify my conversion to facebook presence, I will tell you the whole thing.

    It all started years ago when my dad would read stories to my brother and me before we went to bed at night.  He read a lot of different stories to us, but there were three that stand out in my memory and two that play a particular role in this story.  The first was The Chronicles of Narnia.  I think many of you know how much those stories inspired my enthusiasm and imagination.  There was a particular boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb whom I thoroughly disliked for a good portion of his first two books, but by his last battle, he felt like a good friend.  Shasta probably seized my affection more quickly, although I remember being disappointed to learn that his real name was as regal and simple as Cor. The other story was about something called a hobbit.  I remember specifically my dad’s particular affection for the round barefooted creatures with constant appetites.  Something about Bilbo made me feel like small, underestimated people could still do really cool stuff (I was not particularly tall until junior high). 

    I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy on my own several years later.  I’ll just say that it was one of the times in my life that I really understood how C.S. Lewis felt about the blue flower (Mere Christianity).  I remember a New Year’s Eve after a particularly tumultuous few months in 2007.  I had been reading the series gradually, and I was finally within fifty pages of finishing The Return of the King.  It was fairly close to midnight when I actually finished the book and Sam finished writing his narrative after so much had been lost, so much had been saved, and all was as it should be.

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    Fast forward one or two years.  I visited Andrew where he was in school at Wheaton College.  It was a long trip and I was tired from spending a night in the Atlanta airport.  One thing I was anxious to see was the Wade Center that I had heard about.  It was one of the first things Andrew told me about Wheaton after he had visited it.  And now I finally had the opportunity to see it.  For those of you who don’t know, C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe, which his grandfather built, that he played in with Warnie as a child in Belfast, and later moved to his home in the Kilns, is in the Wade Center.  The Wade Center also has C.S. Lewis’s desk, J.R.R. Tolkien’s desk, props from the Narnia movies, an original map of Narnia painted by Pauline Baynes and various items relating to other Wade Center authors.  And that’s just the museum.  There is also a reading room with various books, manuscripts, articles and letters written by and about the Wade authors.  If you’re curious about the survey/quiz from a few weeks ago, here are the answers.  The Wade Center authors are: Clive Staples Lewis, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Dorothy Leigh Sayers, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, George MacDonald, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams.  I could go into a lot more detail, but if you want details, you can ask me later and I’ll e-mail you or add another post.

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    Fast forward a few more years.  I was trying to choose a college.  I had applied to Wheaton, but I was leaning toward different schools.  I have to admit, one of my pregrets of choosing another school was that, if I went to Wheaton, I could go to the Wade Center all the time.  Long story short, I did end up choosing Wheaton.  After orientation there was a job fair on campus.  One of the booths was for the Wade Center.  I was thrilled at the thought of working there.  I think it was the next day that I received a call telling me to come in for training on Monday.  Now I can always tell people that my first real job position was archival assistant.

    Here’s a typical conversation when I tell someone on campus that I work at the Wade Center. 

Them: Really, I don’t usually see you there when I work out.”   

Me: Not the weight center, the Wade Center, where C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe is.

Them: Oh the Wade Center, I haven’t been there since connection.  I should come by sometime.  When do you work?

    (Connection is what Wheaton calls the weekend when prospective students visit)  Despite the fact that most Wheaton students have only been to the Wade Center once or twice, it is a Mecca of Lewis (and Tolkien, etc.) scholars.  Researchers from all over the world come to work on books and papers about the authors.  Again, I could talk for a long time about the Wade Center but technically this post is about why I got my facebook so I’ll fast forward again.

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    Laura, the archivist / reading room guru had been telling me about a Tolkien Society that might be starting at Wheaton.  She told me a bit about the constitution and some ideas for events and some of the technicalities of starting an official club on campus.  During a Tolkien Reading Day event at the Wade Center, there was a signup for info about starting a Tolkien Society.  Unfortunately, I missed that event because of my Glee Club concert, but Laura kept me posted anyway.  So I attended the first Tolkien Society meeting (last Friday I think).  During the meeting some great ideas were brought up.  But during the meeting, I realized that a large portion of group communication would be through facebook.  Those of you in HomeSTARs know that working around fb based communication has never been a problem for me, but then again, you also know that Miss Fitch is not particularly tech-savvy.  So to cut a long story short (or at least to cut out all the unnecessary details that I enjoy writing in blog posts like this) I was nominated and elected president/ringbearer of the brand new Wheaton College Tolkien Society.  It seemed that the time had finally come for me to get a facebook.

    I started writing this post before I actually got an account.  It has taken me over a week to actually finish it, but regardless, this is the story of how and why Daniel Flavin is now on facebook.  It is also the story of how I came to work at the Wade Center and why I enjoy it so much.  I still have a lot of excess thoughts on both topics, and maybe those will come later.  I would like to say that I haven’t changed any of my opinions on the benefits of face to face communication, or phone communication, or e-mail (I know, facebook messages are the same thing as e-mail).  There are good things about facebook, but I think that communication and forms of communication should be judged by the amount and quality of thought they include, the accuracy and clarity of the thoughts they convey and the extent to which they convey emotion along with thought.  I understand that most of these depend more on the person communicating than on the medium of communication.  However, I still think that facebook encourages laziness in communication.

    I also think that facebook encourages self-centricism, at least it does for me.  I’m not sure that my mini ego-boost every time I receive a friend request is healthy.  On the other hand, I don’t know if this blog is the best alternative in that sense.  I would be a bit embarrassed if you knew how often I check pageview data.  I also intended this to be more of a creative outlet than a series of life update essays.  I do plan to keep posting on this blog, but now that I can post pictures and status updates on facebook, maybe the nature of these posts will change a little in the future.

    So now to anyone who has read this far, thank you for your time and patience.  There should be a little comment button right below this.  It sounds cliché but I’d really love to hear what you think.

Live and Archived

    The last several weeks have been a little overwhelming.  Between my four classes and Glee Club, there seems to always be a test or paper or project or concert every week, sometimes two in one week.  The projects and tests are not particularly interesting to talk about, but the concerts may be a little more interesting to you.  For one, we performed Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem once again, this time in downtown Chicago at the Symphony Center, and the previous performance in Edman Chapel (on Wheaton’s campus last November) is now online: http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/conservarchive.htm (November 20).  Also, our spring concert will be this Friday at 8:00 (6:00 AZ time).  The performance should be broadcast live, so if you want to watch it or part of it you can go to http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn and click the watch live link.  It should be a fun concert.  We have a really wide variety of songs in Glee Club.  We performed two in chapel today.

    I wanted to put some sort of picture in here, but this is the only one that I have taken recently.  This is Ryan Bilton carrying Josh Hershberger and Sam Cortez, and Bryce Walpus is touching Sam’s head.  A few comments.  Sam is going to be one of my roommates next year, Lord wiling.  In our last raid, Ryan played a significant role, and one of the other guys on our floor sang the song “Gaston” from Beauty and the Beast, replacing the word Gaston with Bilton. I also have been reading a few Father Brown stories for a reading group at the Wade Center, in one of them, detective Valentin mentions a caper of the extremely brilliant and athletic master criminal Flambeau in which he carried two policemen down the street, one under each arm.

    It snowed today….  Everyone here feels as if spring has betrayed us.  We had two weeks of very nice weather, then this afternoon, it got a bit chilly, just enough for me to contemplate wearing a sweater.  Then when I looked out the window a few hours later the snow had returned.  I don’t think any more than an inch fell, but it’s the principle of the matter.  The last remnants of winters hold on our campus had begun to disappear, the former eight foot mounds of snow had been reduced to tiny piles a few inches in diameter and then completely obliterated, but now reinforcements have come, and we must brace ourselves for one more skirmish against this foe.  We must keep our fleece armor at the ready and our heaters vigilant.

From the front lines,

Daniel Flavin

Homesick

    I’ve never entirely understood what the word “homesick” meant.  When I was younger, sickness meant a mixture of physical discomforts and disabilities.  It meant running noses, headaches, soreness, exhaustion, etc.  I still think of sickness in a similar way, but when I was younger I could not imagine how not being in a certain place could make someone feel physically sick.  I do remember missing home while on vacation and wondering if that was homesickness.  That may have been why I had trouble understanding homesickness: I had experienced sickness and I had experienced missing home, but in my experience there was very little connection between them.  In the time since then, both ideas have grown closer to each other.  As a child, when I was sick I don’t particularly remember longing to be well.  More recently, when I am sick I spend a significant portion of my time remembering what it felt like to be well and wishing I could be well.

    Sometimes in class, sometimes in a conversation, and sometimes walking across campus, I have had a sudden, vivid memory of a particular location.  The odd thing about it is that most of the time, it isn’t “home.”  It is not necessarily my room or my house or even a place that I would list as one of particular significance or emotional attachment.  It may be Freestone Park, the parking lot of Sam’s Club or Fiesta mall.  Somehow, even though that place does not seem to hold any particular meaning to me, I feel an intense longing to be there, not to do anything particular there, merely to be there.  You might say that this is merely my sub-conscious telling me to go somewhere warmer.  That may be part of it.  (As a side note, I have learned a few things about cold weather.  One: it is not hard to freeze hair, just walk outside with slightly damp hair and wait fifteen seconds.  Two: hoodies and beanies were not invented just to look cool.  Three: there are two ways to get rid of a farmer’s tan.)  But there's something about those familiar places that is comfortable and inviting.  Even though Wheaton is more comfortable than it used to be, it does not have the same level of memories and emotional attachment that places in Arizona do.  

Snow Day!!!

    In general Wheaton does not have snow days.  Normally, they just work extra hard to keep the sidewalks and roads clear enough for everyone to get to class.  However, Tuesday and Wednesday, classes were cancelled and campus was closed due to a blizzard.  The Wade Center closed at three today,, so I left an hour early and on the way back the wind blew the snow so fast and hard that it felt like a sand blaster blowing in my face.  Kody, my heavily bearded suitemate is on snow crew, so as he was outside shoveling, his beard became thickly coated in snow and ice, so that according to his roommate Jonathan, he looked like Santa Claus with a white beard.  Yesterday, some of my friends and I dug a tunnel in a snow bank, and then sprinted across a field of three foot deep snow, then started tackling each other into soft cushions of snow, then went inside because we were freezing.

    I’m still pretty swamped in homework, but I did want to share a few pictures with you.I posted a before, during and after photo.  Enjoy!

Can You Read Fox in Socks? Seriously.

    About two minutes ago my suitemate Jonathan walked in and told me to look at Yahoo.com’s front page.  On the headlines, he clicked on the video on the right.  Once you watch the video, you’ll realize why I was particularly excited.  This is Xin Yan, from 4 South (my sister floor) reading Fox in Socks.  She came in first place in the Wheaton talent show last fall.  I know th

Wheaton Talent Show 2010 winner, Xin Yang’s Fox in Socks

at you are thinking, “I can read Fox in Socks, but I didn’t win the Wheaton talent show and get a headline on Yahoo.  What’s so special about being able to read a kids book, even one that has a few tongue twisters?”  At least I was asking that question when I saw “Xin Yan reading Fox in Socks” in the program.  Once you watch the video, you’ll see why she won the talent show.