I have a hole in my beard. A bald spot to be precise; located right below what is colloquially known as the “soul patch” and in the center of what should be a pretty solid beard, a little wispy on the sideburns and cheekbones, sure, but a solid beard. I have this bald spot because of a biking/roller-blading/skateboarding/walking-in-a-straight-line-while-being-too-gangly accident that occurred when I was about eleven or twelve. When it happened it didn’t seem out of the ordinary, I got up, my mom washed it out with hydrogen peroxide and I went along with my regularly scheduled programming. My friends probably made fun of me for having a silver-dollar-sized scab on my face, but that was par for my particular adolescent course; had I not fallen (literally) on my face they likely would have found other ammo to use in a (hopefully) friendly rib-fest, e.g. my general nerdiness, an inability to dribble a basketball with even marginal competency, etc., etc. Javen Weston, from about age 10-18 had plenty of character quirks to be exploited by friend and foe alike.

I often bring up this particular bald-spot/scar and the story behind it to people whenever conversations veer into even the most peripheral of topics: my face, my beard, beards in general, scars, hair, the Boston Red Sox, the NHL playoffs, that one line in Billy Madison about Grizzly Adams, etc. I do this because it’s on my face, and even though we are told in school that looks don’t matter (a statement I agree with, in principle) our faces do matter. They travel with us always, we cannot escape them with the uncountable number of reflective surfaces strewn about the modern landscape. We may say that our looks are not important to us, but when almost all of us have to look at our own faces at some point of every single day that we are alive, it is hard for me to believe that our reflections don’t matter at least just a little bit. And I always notice this scar. I don’t notice it because it reminds of a painful experience from childhood because I cannot recall the specifics of the incident any more than I can recall a any particular instance of the near-infinite number of times I have stubbed my big toe. I don’t notice it because I remember the ridicule of friends or classmates, I have plenty of those memories and this one is nowhere even close to getting on my Mount Rushmore of Embarrassing Life Experiences. I notice this scar because I didn’t even know it was there until I reached facial-hair-growing age. The wound healed up perfectly after the scab fell off you couldn’t even tell it was there. But once I reached an age where I could no longer count the number of hairs on my chin in under 2 minutes, there it was, like the patch of bare ground surrounding a big oak tree. I notice this scar because it’s more than just a scar to me, it’s a constant reminder about all of the experiences of my childhood that fundamentally molded who I am, but didn’t make their true nature known until I was (at least) far into my twenties; a reminder of the countless other events that I won’t appreciate until my thirties, forties, fifties,…and the ones that I will never appreciate because they have been lost forever from my memory’s grasp. And I look at a metaphorical representation of that loss every morning.   

Biography

Ariel Sharon died last week. After spending a long period of time in a coma, he finally passed. I have to admit that before a few years ago, I didn't have a very complex idea of who Sharon was, what he had done, etc.; and, to a certain extent, I think that helped me come to know him as the complex individual he (and the rest of us) was/are/can be in both our minute daily lives and when looked at as the sum of the area under the curve of our life's path; the integral of the arc our lives have followed. In math, (calculus, to be exact) one of the simplest ways to estimate the area under any line drawn on a piece of paper is to split that curve up into a few sections, like this:

Then, we draw the blue rectangles, calculate the area of each of them (length x width), add those areas together and BOOM!!, we've approximated the area under the curve from a to b. Of course, this is a really poor approximation; just look at all the blue sticking up above the curve, and the white sitting below it for evidence. 

We can make this same kind of approximation if we imagine Ariel Sharon's life as a line/path that has moved through time, geography, culture, politics,..... If we wanted to find a rough approximation of who Sharon was, we can split his life up into a few different chunks, say pre-Prime Ministership and post-PM election, then average the "type" of man he was in those two time periods, add them together and BOOM!! we've approximated Ariel Sharon. But, damn is it a crude approximation. The man is elected Prime Minister of Israel and instantly becomes a different "type" of man than he was before that instant. It seems ridiculous because it is, but in calculus we have a very simple way to remedy thiss problem; we split the curve up into smaller and smaller rectangles, like this:

If we add up all of those rectangle/chunks of Sharon's life, we get a much better answer to the questions 'what is the area under the curve?' or 'Who was Ariel Sharon?' than we did before. but, it's still not perfect, in math we use a brilliant technique invented by Gottfried Leibniz to 'integrate' the curve by splitting it up into infinitely many little rectangles. But, doing so with the sum of a person's life experiences is impossible; in effect, we would have to re-live Sharon's life, and each of us can only live our own lives, and certainly could not re-live Sharon's without bringing our own histories with us for the ride. All we can do is inspect the lives of those around us in as much detail as we can, and keep in mind that calculating the sum of a person's character based on a limited number of 'data points' or 'personal interactions' is a sure way to mis-judge that person. All of us understand how complex our own lives are/have been, and going forward we need to keep in mind that no matter how hard we try, or closely we look, we can never see all of the area under the twisted curve of another person's path through life.

Of Catalonia and New Beginnings

My first post revolved around the first book I read after graduating from college this May, Hannah Arendt's On Violence.  I am not sure, then, if it is appropriate, or merely an indication of my blogging laziness, that my second post will be based primarily around the last book I have read this summer before I begin graduate school.  Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell is an excellent book and has single-handedly kindled in me a desire to know much more about Spain and made feel a deep sense of disappointment that I did not put more effort into the two semesters of college-level Spanish that I was required to take.  However, I am sceptical because I am not sure if it is Orwell's marvelous writing that makes Spain so interesting or if Spain's character inspired Orwell's writing.  I suspect that both are true.  The book recounts George Orwell's trip to Spain in 1930's.  Initially, he went to report on the Civil War that was currently embroiling the entire Iberian peninsula, but was so moved by the cause of the Spanish working class forces that he joined a militia, spent months on the front lines and was eventually shot through the throat by a sniper.  The story itself seems utterly fantastic, but the book is simple, quiet, witty, it seems to be the opposite of war; there is no pomp, no glory only the reality that war is hell, but it is sometimes worth doing (though a war begun for noble reasons rarely remains a noble affair for long).  The style paints a picture of war that is unsensational and, I think, honest.

"One of the most horrible features of war is that all teh war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting." p.65


"It was like an allegorical picture of war; the trainload of fresh mean gliding proudly up the line, the maimed men sliding slowly down, and all the while the guns on the open trucks making one's heart leap as guns always do, and reviving that pernicious feeling, so difficult to get rid of, that war is glorious after all." p. 192

The Vita Activa and the reason for this blog

For the last three and a half months, Hannah Arendt has dominated a very large part of my attention.  Last year I  enrolled in a class on the life, times and thoughts of Hannah Arendt.  Since then I have read four of her books and three of her essays, listened to lectures by four renowned Arendt scholars, and spent three hours of every Monday evening discussing her with a class of thirteen other college students.  I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  I don't have the time to explain Arendt's extraordinary life or detailed political theories here (and couldn't do it in a way that would do justice to her if I tried).  However, one thing she brings up that has really hit a chord for me is her distinctions between the Vita Contemplativa and the Vita Activa; the contemplative life and the active life.  After reading a few of her works I have begun to feel that I have been spending too much of my time living the Vita Contemplativa rather than the Vita Activa, I spend my days with my nose in a book, in a newspaper, in a magazine gathering information and thinking about what all of this information means.  This is something that I see as admirable and good, but Arendt has made me feel like it is simply inadequate.  I must, of course, think but then it is necessary for me to act, I must discuss my ideas with others and have my ideas shape theirs while their thoughts shape mine in return.  So, I decided to start writing what I am thinking.  Not exactly a fresh and new idea, but one that I believe I will find satisfaction in.  Arendt would probably have doubts as to how much 'action' a blog can truly represent, but I will start with the hopes that expressing my thoughts through writing will help me arrange them within myself.  I'd like to close my first post with one of the most striking of Hannah Arendt's thoughts that I have encountered over the course of my semester with her.  It is from her essay "What is Freedom."

Objectively, that is, seen from the outside and without taking into account that man is a beginning and a beginner, the chances that tomorrow will be like yesterday are always overwhelming.  Not quite so overwhelming, to be sure, but very nearly so as the chances were that no earth would ever rise out of cosmic occurrences, that no life would develop out of inorganic processes, and that no man would emerge out of the evolution of animal life.  The decisive difference between the "infinite improbabilities" on which the reality of our earthly life rests and the miraculous character inherent in those events which establish historical reality is that, in the realm of human affairs, we know the author of the "miracles."  It is men who perform them - men who because they have received the twofold gift of freedom and action can establish a reality of their own.