cleithart

Two Quotes on Dying

They, who in matters of war seek in all ways to save their lives, are just they who, as a rule, die dishonorably; whereas they who, recognizing that death is the common lot and destiny of all men, strive hard to die nobly: these more frequently, as I observe, do after all attain to old age, or, at any rate, while life lasts, they spend their days more happily. This lesson let all lay to heart this day, for we are just at such a crisis of our fate. Now is the season to be brave ourselves, and to stimulate the rest by our example.
Xenophon, Anabasis

A man’s thoughts [when death draws near] seem to be double-powered, and the memory becomes very sharp and clear. I don’t know what was in the others’ minds, but I know what filled my own… I fancy it isn’t the men who get most out of the world and are always buoyant and cheerful that most fear to die. Rather it is the weak-engined souls who go about with dull eyes, that cling most fiercely to life. They have not the joy of being alive which is a kind of earnest of immortality … I know that my thoughts were chiefly about the jolly things that I had seen and done; not regret, but gratitude.
Dick Hannay in John Buchan’s Greenmantle

At first glance, these two quotes express the same thing, that those who cling to life never really live at all, and those who are willing to risk everything enjoy it all the more. But Hannay is able to trace his sentiment to a source that Xenophon (apparently) knew nothing of: gratitude.

I also love that phrase, an “earnest of immortality,” meaning, of course, a pledge or promise of things to come. The real joy of life comes in knowing there’s more life to come.

When I was in the process of conversion, it was, as it often is, terrifying. One of the things that was terrifying was that there was so much that I loved about being human—good fiction and music and intellectual adventures and experiencing nature and careful thinking—and I didn’t know how of all those human things would look in light of the Gospel, with all its urgency.
Susannah Black Roberts

Preparing for the Apocalypse

I knew an old couple that sat many evenings out on their porch. Sometimes both, sometimes one. They’d sit longer into the night than seemed reasonable, as if they were waiting for something that never came. It wasn’t until after the disaster that I believed I understood why.

Every subsequent evening, almost the entire street went, and sat, and talked, and shared, and played, for hours, around THEIR porch. Stubborn habit? Or had they just never forgotten a normal that everyone else briefly remembered?
Source

I Love Me Some Ammo Against Encanto

[C]onsider that the only character in Encanto… who has experienced any significant real-life adventure is the heroine’s grandmother. And Abuela’s adventures, which happened long before the movie takes place, are portrayed as a traumatic backstory that results in her stifling her grandchildren’s self-actualisation. In effect, it’s a Disney princess adventure about the impossibility, under modern conditions, of making Disney princess adventures.
Mary Harrington

Using a Scythe

So great an art can only be learnt by continual practice; but this much is worth writing down, that, as in all good work, to know the thing with which you work is the core of the affair. Good verse is best written on good paper with an easy pen, not with a lump of coal on a whitewashed wall. The pen thinks for you; and so does the scythe mow for you if you treat it honourably and in a manner that makes it recognise its service.
Hilaire Belloc, Hills and the Sea

Iteration in the Classroom

So here’s my one small idea: I’d begin to teach iteration. Iteration as a subject, equivalent to math, science, history, language, art, music, etc. How do you make something better over time? How do you return to something that you’ve done and see it with fresh eyes? How do you apply new perspective to an old problem? Where do you find that new perspective? What trails do you follow and which do you ignore? How do you smash the familiar and reassemble something new from the same pieces?

Once you’re done with school, and cast out into the world, your job is likely to involve iteration. No matter what you’re doing, you’re probably going to have to do something over. And often times again and again. You rarely simply deliver something and move on. You’re asked to refactor, to build on it, to “make it better”.
Jason Fried

I’m not sure about teaching iteration as a subject in itself, but it should definitely be a part of every class. Speaking for myself, the main difficulty in teaching iteration is giving students specific, insightful feedback. In the real world, your work will be evaluated by your boss, your family, your customers, the world at large. If you don’t do a good job, you’re forced to try again and do better. In school, you’re lucky if your teacher looks at your work with anything more than a passing glance.

Like Hotcakes

Ear, Hand, Foot had a good first week. I’ve fulfilled over a hundred orders in the last six days.

Don’t wait to order! We only ordered 500 copies for our first printing and almost half of them are sold. And the Christmas shopping season has only just started. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a big fat “Out of Stock” message on the website soon.

Ear, Hand, Foot display - Photo cred: Brian Moats

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An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)

The animators really explored the studio space in this one.

Before All Things Else

What distinguishes [the artist] here from the man who works to live is, I think, his desire to see the fulfilment of the work. Whether it is possible for a machine-worker to feel creatively about his routine job I do not know; but I suspect that it is, provided and so long as the worker eagerly desires that before all things else the work shall be done. What else causes the armaments worker to labour passionately when he knows that the existence of his country is threatened, but that his heart travels along the endless band with the machine parts and that his imagination beholds the fulfilment of the work in terms, not of money, but of the blazing gun itself, charged with his love and fear. As the author of Ecclesiasticus says, he “watches to finish the work”; for once, that is, he sees the end-product of his toil exactly as the artist always sees it, in a vision of Idea, Energy, and Power. It is unfortunate that so little effort should be made by Church or State to show him the works of peace in the same terms. Is the man, for example, engaged in the mass-production of lavatory cisterns encouraged to bring to his daily monotonous toil the vision splendid of an increasingly hygienic world? I doubt it; yet there is much merit in sanitary plumbing—more, if you come to think of it, than there is in warfare.
Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker