Today's homework is none other than an essay (about 30 pages long) that any fan of William James would include on his greatest hits album: "A Certain Blindness in Human Beings," contained in a larger book on Gutenberg.
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Me and the boys were at Starbucks again, halfway through a bicycle ride. As usual the blarney spilled over the curb and flowed out to the shopping mall parking lot.
Then an older woman -- interrupting yet another shopping trip for yet another trinket, no doubt -- walked up to our table, and began to ask some questions. She appeared quizzical. Her reception was not unfriendly by our group. She seemed to think that a kaffee-klatsch of bald/grey/white heads in bicycle garb was so silly that only politeness kept her from laughing out loud. Perhaps it we presented ourselves well, her good nature would have granted us the status of licensed lunatics. I wasn't even going to try to please her. Instead, I seethed at the old crone's presumptuousness in even having an opinion on a group as admirable as ours.
Snowbird country is filled with people resembling her. You know the stereotype. How could she possibly appreciate what this group of older cyclists was capable of? Of course, I was just as blind to anything interesting, significant, or non-routine in her, because I had already reduced her to a demographic stereotype.
And in her defense, how could she know what road-cycling meant to me? Recall that I am rereading Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" series of novels. It is doubtful that any of the cyclists at the table would have appreciated how pleasant it is to imagine cycling through the windy and flat lettuce fields of Yuma, AZ, while under the influence of these nautical novels. I hope to explain in the next episode.
Frequently I decide to make a blog-post out of explaining some odd little experience or observation. 'Where there is smoke, there is fire,' is a useful old adage. Getting upset with the old crone when nobody else did, seemed like one of those minor things that could reveal something more important. We shall see.
_______________________________________
Me and the boys were at Starbucks again, halfway through a bicycle ride. As usual the blarney spilled over the curb and flowed out to the shopping mall parking lot.
Then an older woman -- interrupting yet another shopping trip for yet another trinket, no doubt -- walked up to our table, and began to ask some questions. She appeared quizzical. Her reception was not unfriendly by our group. She seemed to think that a kaffee-klatsch of bald/grey/white heads in bicycle garb was so silly that only politeness kept her from laughing out loud. Perhaps it we presented ourselves well, her good nature would have granted us the status of licensed lunatics. I wasn't even going to try to please her. Instead, I seethed at the old crone's presumptuousness in even having an opinion on a group as admirable as ours.
Snowbird country is filled with people resembling her. You know the stereotype. How could she possibly appreciate what this group of older cyclists was capable of? Of course, I was just as blind to anything interesting, significant, or non-routine in her, because I had already reduced her to a demographic stereotype.
And in her defense, how could she know what road-cycling meant to me? Recall that I am rereading Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" series of novels. It is doubtful that any of the cyclists at the table would have appreciated how pleasant it is to imagine cycling through the windy and flat lettuce fields of Yuma, AZ, while under the influence of these nautical novels. I hope to explain in the next episode.
Frequently I decide to make a blog-post out of explaining some odd little experience or observation. 'Where there is smoke, there is fire,' is a useful old adage. Getting upset with the old crone when nobody else did, seemed like one of those minor things that could reveal something more important. We shall see.
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Who is Lord Cochrane?