On my special day off today, I went to Park Road for the back doctor, as well as a stroll through Park Road itself. I ended up at Lilian Park again, in the mid afternoon, toting two books that I will be teaching to my young students; Anne of Green Gables and Cricket of Times Square. And I started tracing a few elementary course syllabus.
My reflections for today (were many, perhaps too many). Firstly, that texts never have a clearly delineated reader (subject) and finished product (object). Texts intersect in strange and unexpected ways with readers. It's illusory and overwhelming to try to get the "full" meaning of a text, while ignoring an authentic and pre-cognitive connection with the text that has little to do with either "full" or "official". Thinking in this way allows me much greater room to explore my curiosity about books, rather than trying to plumb the "ultimate" depth of books themselves. It allows me more room to see the permutations of reading books, and how unlimited subject positions really are within it.
Second reflection: sometimes the whirlwinds people are drawn to are not in any way indicative of people's stations in life. Literally, whirlwinds don't go anywhere: they spin a person in one place. Rather than whirling with the whirlwind, it is best to keep the mind as still a possible--not attached to the intricacies of the whirlwind--yet paradoxically humble to the fact that the whirlwind cannot be resisted. It's in surrendering even one's very will (seeing through the will, realizing its vanity and shallowness, etc.) that the will truly stops. Will and whirlwind drive each other: one tempting/torturing, the other chasing and tortured. When one part gives up or becomes tired, the other will naturally fall away, as illusory.
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