I like feeling passionate about things.

Dirty Lake #2: Seriously though, can someone clean this shit up?

Sam Flake's Thesis

Preparation

Preparation 2

Baby food. Cedar and small dead twigs

Okay, so I'm cheating by using a lighter

On Connection: David Abram says on page 112 in The Spell of the Sensuous, “the capacity to view and even dialogue with one’s own words after writing them down, or even in the process of writing them down, enables a new sense of autonomy and independence from others, and even from the sensuous surroundings that had earlier been one’s constant interlocutor.” I am particularly interested in this notion of a”new sense of autonomy” that was born out of the transition from an oral tradition to a written one. As a psychology major I can’t help but wonder about the enormous internal shift that had to take place within people. You have individuals that might not have a sense of individuality who, as Abram says, are connected to their sensuous surroundings, see themselves as one with the earth and with others. Then, these people are challenged to think about what they’re thinking, to say what they’ve said in another way, to define words, to define clouds, to define themselves for the first time. This is fantastic in the betterment of civilization, for example, the worker who can question the fairness of his situation and to ask “what does fair mean to me?” Or for the advancement in medicine in the sense that remedies can be recorded and made better. But Abram says on page 113, “the written letters bring not wisdom but only ‘the conceit of wisdom,’ making men seem to know much when in fact they know little.” That’s an interesting line because science  and all the other disciplines can make a pretty strong case for wisdom through written letters, but he seems to be talking about a different wisdom, a wisdom that goes back to oral tradition, to losing that sense of independence and feeling more connected.

Psychology: Viktor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning, “The true meaning of life is to be found in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system.... Human experience is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization. (p.175)” Self-transcendence is essentially that, a transcendence of the self, being one with the rest of the world. This is the highest human potential according to humanistic psychologists (Who all other branches of psychology hate because they refuse to break people down into little parts as they see with a holistic lens). We talk about Peak Experiences in psychology, too. We all know what these are, hopefully we’ve all experienced one where time is non-existent, we are swept away by beauty and feel wonder, we feel a connection with everything else in the world, where a certain euphoria washes over, all of this usually in response to something beautiful like a piece of art, an incredible landscape, or love. There is no I, there is no autonomy, there is no independence from the sensuous surroundings. There is connection. When one strives towards the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, towards self-actualization (but really self-transcendence), the disconnection of the objective created by ancient Greece is lost in the ever increasing feeling of connectedness to others and to the world. As disconnection is a basis for psychological disorder, connection is the basis for psychological wellbeing.

Advice from a graduate: I asked someone who graduated from Goucher College last year, who I know from high school, what the “real world” is like and if she had any advice for me. Her “best advice for me” was to,

“think about everything that you would ever want to do in your life and then start applying to internships/americorps/service groups or anything else that in the least bit applies. I think too often people around our age are getting out of college and thinking that if they don't get a 40 hour a week job that is exactly what they want to do they're failing...that's SO FALSE! I was a dog walker for the month of September and had no shame. Think big. There's no reason you shouldn't! “

              
I talked to my dad about this later and he couldn’t agree more with not worrying about getting the 40hr a week job. He wasted his spring break his senior year interviewing at different banks, started working at one right out of college, and has been at one ever since. I don’t want to do that, it makes me shutter to even imagine myself starting my “career” right now, not that there isn’t any fear of failing by not getting starting that career early, but I’m not ready to work the 9-5 for the rest of my life, maybe I’ll never be ready.

             
Actually, I had a conversation with a businessman over outside of London when I studied abroad and he thought working 40 hours a week was ridiculous and that we should all work 3 or 4 days of the week. To continue this tangent, I remember reading something in a Peace and Conflict Studies book that said when we were hunter-gatherers, people only worked the equivalent of about two days (it might not have been two, but it was close). Some men would go out on a hunt, kill a big animal, and eat it all week. There was none of this sitting in an office and punching computer keys for the majority of your waking hours only to get home so exhausted from the boredom that you can’t enjoy the stuff that your job pays for, or the kids that your job keeps you away from.  

             
But back to the advice. “Think about everything that you would ever want to do in your life and then start applying…” Because why not do what you want to do? Isn’t it that simple? Why does the 40hr/week job have to be any different than what you would ever want to do in your life? And hey, no one is really sure if there’s an afterlife, next life, or even an immortal soul, so why not live your life and do what you want (That statement is for you as much as it is for me). I think that gets close to the definition of success.