Today's Status:
Sitting down to simply work on homework today was a real challenge for me today. It was really good practice for the rest of the week, though! I realized I had a very difficult time; I couldn't FOCUS- I kept having urges to go get something to eat, or listen to music or ANYTHING, just to have something to do. But I didn't; I made myself just sit down and work- FOR MORE THAN FOUR HOURS (with healthy lunch and walk break in between, which included less walking and more talking with our neighbor, which was really nice!)!!! I STILL didn't finish everything because all the work that I did was just the make-up work for when I was gone, not my actual homework, but I'm still going to allow myself to feel proud of all my hard work, and how much I really got involved and interested in it; and I'm still going to let myself sleep, because I decided I need that more than completed homework tomorrow (no one tell Mr.Finn! Hopefully my six pages of notes will make up for it...).
So, before I keep rambling on and really say more than is necessary on a productive but genuinely boring day, here are some (in my opinion) really incredible quotes from the man who I spent nearly my entire day with- Sir Philip Sidney (he died in the 1500s; don't worry).
(Boring warning at this point retracted; unless you think this is boring, too...it's really all quite relative/subjective, but sometimes even I think what I wrote is boring; that's when you know it's bad! ;p )
"But all (though we do so in different ways), having this scope (aim): to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind out of the dungeon of the body to the enjoying of his own divine essence."
This one makes more sense in context, where man is created in God's image and it is, therefore, in his nature to create, even to create something better than what presently exists. Poets are freed from the limitations of what "has been, what is, and shall be" to the stretches of the imagination, of what "should be, and what may be." The goal in all of this is "well-doing, not well-knowing."
"...the inward light in each mind hath in itself is as good as a philosopher's book; since in nature (considering that by nature) we know it is well to do well, and what is well, and what is evil, although not in the words of art which philosophers bestow upon us; for out of natural conceit (natural understanding as opposed to the philosophers' special vocabulary) the philosophers drew it. But to be moved to do that which we know, or to be moved with desire to know, hoc upus hic labor est (this is the task, this is the work to be done. Virgil, Aeneid)."
(How cool- I forgot I could use colors! :) )
"For delight we scarcely do but in things that have a conveniency (agreement, correspondance) to ourselves or to the general nature."
I guess they seem slightly less dramatic now...but when I was reading them (in the context of THIRTY PAGES AND FOUR HOURS' WORTH), they were extremely impacting to me. At one incredible point of enjoyment, before lunch, I said to myself (I was the only one home today as I did this, so all of my conversations were held with myself), "Now that is a beautiful moment: when your homework can help you in your journey to become a person..." or something like that. When I said that, it sent chills of excitement through me, because that, precisely, is the vision behind my dream of starting a school. I can't really describe it, but the stuff I was reading today was pretty relevant, pretty exciting.
Of course, I don't still hold as strong a sentiment right now, thinking of how much work I am going to have to do tomorrow, and the ridiculous amount of reading that is piling up...but at least I got to read something of such immense value. To be able to really connect with the ideas of a person from a completely different time period- from an entirely different world- to really feel like, "wow, I get it," when he talks about the place of poetry (and, as an extension, theater), was really incredible.
It makes me feel connected, like people throughout all of history were able to find a certain thread of understanding, and that those threads never dissapear, and that people years down the line, in some random homework assignment, or class, or conversation, will find that same thread and catch hold, and explore the deep colors and intricate patterns of those whose fingers touched it in centuries past; the newcomers, giddy with the excitement of discovery and awed by the honor of understanding, will add their own strands and threads of thought, interpretation, experience, and idea to the chord. (And) somehow, someday, everyone will be holding onto a single chord of threads, a perfect web of thought that connects everyone through time and space and difference in point of view; the diversity of colors will only add to the richness of the final product, not cause fights against each other to destroy or dominate certain sections of it.
That's what poet's do- create fictional ideas of a better reality.
And some poets were called prophets- because eventually... people learned, and it worked...
(Picture taken from blog.doloreslabs.com/topics/colors/; all rights given to David Sparks, Ph.D.)
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