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Why and how feel like such close questions. And yet, there is an unseen gulf of meaning between the two. Far too often, we stop the mind from looking upward by focusing it downward.

Why asks the reason, the cause, the philosophical reason that something is. How, by contrast, asks the mechanism, the physical description of what is. That is, why is to metaphysics what how is to physics.¹

Children are always gazing upward, considering the nature of the world.² Children ask why the world is the way it is, not how it is. When we tell them that the world is the way it is because of history, that reduces all of creation to a series of forced events. We lose agency in this world.

Why is the sky blue? Rayleigh scattering is true, but it is how the sky is blue. Rayleigh scattering explains that some light is diffracted differently.³ If physics is all that makes the sky blue, then there must not be anything more than physics, is what our minds are lead to believe. By answering questions of why with how language, we fall into the trap of scientism.

More than that, though, we fall into an issue endemic to computer science. Computer scientists are famous for creating solutions to problems without considering the secondary effects, or the reasons the problems may exist. The most famous example that I can think of is a Stanford student who found that when you challenge a parking ticket, most jurisdictions will just drop the charge, because it isn’t worth the hassle to fight it. So, the student wrote an app to automatically contest all parking tickets.

Deep down, the question being asked was how do parking tickets work, not why do they exist. I think that we can all agree it is generally better to not park in disabled spaces⁴ or in front of fire hydrants. This why and how can also lead to an intellectual stagnation.

Let’s take the example of the research that my group does. We look for the origins of life in star forming regions. From now on, each statement will have an implicit how question attached to it.

We use telescopes such as ALMA and NOEMA to measure the radio frequencies emitted from star forming regions and tie them to specific molecular transitions.

We have catalogs of molecular line information, which we can assign to the spectra coming from space.

We can shine known wavelengths of light on known molecules and detect whether or not the molecule absorbs at that wavelength.

We can see a change in voltage, which is directly correlated to the change in light.

Notice how even here, we’ve fallen almost completely away from the actual research goal of searching for the origins of life in star forming regions. All of the how questions are absolutely essential, because without answers, we would not be able to measure transitions or assign them. However, imagine if instead we start asking why.

We can see a change in voltage, which is directly correlated to the change in light. (Why?) The software we use is designed to function with an instrument that has a variable resistor. It measures changes in photons as changes in temperature as changes in resistance. V=IR, so that can make a change in I or V if you hold the other constant. (Why?) It’s a detector very similar to the ones that astronomers use? (Why?) Calibrating based on temperature is easier?⁵

We can shine known wavelengths of light on known molecules and detect whether or not the molecule absorbs at that wavelength. (Why?) We want to know what frequencies the molecule absorbs light at. (Why?) When we know what frequencies the molecule absorbs light at, we can assign its spectra using a limited number of rotational constants. (Why?) Rotational transitions are low energy, which means that a lot of the cold regions of space still have active populations in multiple rotational states, which allows us to quantify temperature and density. (Why?) Knowing what space is like helps us to model it, and can help us learn where we come from. (Hey look we got to the question of origins)

We can purchase molecules and collect their rotational spectra. I feel like this one follows the same train of thought.

We have catalogs of molecular line information, which we can assign to the spectra coming from space. This one follows the same starting from “rotational transitions are low energy”.

So, one thing that I notice is that how questions lead me deeper into the subject, reducing the scope of the question, while why questions bring me higher. There is absolutely a space for both, and I think that both are needed. The ideal is to have feel firmly anchored on the ground and a head floating in the clouds, after all.⁶

It is important to look deeper at the question. Physics as a field is built on the concept of reductionism. For all that it has limits, as every other method of discovery does, it is an incredibly powerful tool when applied correctly.

However, the same is true for why. Without motivating the work we do, there is no way to connect it to others. Since all that we do is for the greater glory of G-d, and we are called to bring all creation to Him, we need everything we do to be in connection to the rest of the world, especially the rest of humanity.⁷

Draft 4

I often find myself considering language. There are a lot of reasons for it, as I come to realize more and more with each passing year. One of the more common issues that I find myself considering is the shade of difference between similar words. Two of these words are “why” and “how”.⁹

Why is focused on the reason behind an act, and how focuses on the process behind it. This distinction, for all that it took me far too long to find, rather than simply looking it up, is a somewhat subtle one. Often, we treat the words as interchangeable.

For example, think of that most basic scientific question: “why is the sky blue?”

Most often, we answer this with mechanistic answers. The sky is blue, we explain, because of rayleigh scattering¹⁰, or because air is blue¹¹, or any of a number of other answers. That is, we tell children how the sky is blue.

I think that it’s a subtle thing. By answering questions where someone looks for a reason with a mechanism, we start to point to mechanisms as reasons themselves. That is, the world we create when why questions are answered with how lacks transcendence.¹² When we see the world as nothing but a machine, moving thoughtlessly along, we feel as though actions cease to matter. After all, if the why is the how, then free will makes no sense.

We can look and see the issue from the opposite perspective. If we answer a how question with a why answer, we fall down to fundamentalism.

We celebrate Hanukkah because Hashem preserved the Jewish people before, and He will continue to do so in the future.

I don’t know if that quite works. It feels almost like a non sequitor, and I realize now that there are ways to frame the question that start from a science question, rather than a religious point.

How does a computer program work? We write computer programs to make life easier. We can, hmm no.

By adding the work at the end of the sentence, you cannot really substitute a why.

Computers make life easier because they can do a lot of math really quickly. As it turns out, problems which are easy for people to solve tend to involve concepts, while questions that are easy for computers to solve tend to involve caluclations.

That doesn’t answer the question. I think that this is showing me my own bias. I have a far easier time accepting that a process explains a reason than that a reason explains a process. Then again, I find myself incredibly uncomfortable with fundamentalism as a concept. What do I mean by fundamentalism?

That’s a fantastic question. Fundamentalism is answering how questions with a why. When finding the way that something works, we can always delve deeper.

If we answer “how do molecules form” with “because it is favorable for them to do so”¹⁴, we shift the question from mechanisms to reasons. Actually, as I think about it, the framing of an answer is often the difference between why and how. Why do molecules bond? It’s energetically favorable. How do they bond? Two atoms draw close enough that they release energy by drawing closer.

I don’t think that’s the point I’m trying to make, though. Let’s try one last time, focusing entirely on the whole “using a how to answer a why kills belief in greater workings and makes the world as though automata.”

Draft 3

One question that children stereotypically ask is “why?”.¹⁵ One question that children ask far less often¹⁶ is how. To be honest, I think that the lack of distinction in children’s questions is the start of every issue that we have in communication.¹⁷

Think about explaining grass as green, either because it reflects green light, or because it has chlorophyll. Each of those answers would satisfy the question of either why or how grass is green. And yet, to me, at least, these two sets of responses feel different. If they don’t to you, this musing is only downhill from here. Be forewarned.

In basic terms, I generally feel like how is looking within, while why looks without. Or, how asks the mechanism by which something operates. Why assumes that there’s a broader meaning to it.

If so, it does lend credence to the idea that why questions are questions of faith, while¹⁸ how questions are questions of science. This definition, of course, relies on science being defined as a mechanistic search for the way that the universe functions, while faith is concerned with understanding the reasons which make the universe.¹⁹

Something that I keep needing to remind myself is that there needs to be a takeaway from whatever I write. Given that I don’t know what the point of this musing. I guess we can ask the two questions of this musing?

I am writing this musing because I have a vague sense of dis-ease²⁰ about the difference between the words, their meaning, and their use. The two words need to be different, if only because they are different words.

I don’t think that there’s a deeper meaning to this musing, at least yet. So, let’s assume that the why has been covered.

I’m writing this musing by making different drafts of the musing. I’m writing this musing by trying to think about what I think the differences are. I’m writing this musing by figuring out what I think the words mean in connection to other words.

Any other ways that I’m writing this musing? I honestly think that may be it. That’s how I’m writing it.

So I guess the way that I responded to the questions confirms my thoughts about how they differ. Why does seem to point to meaning, and how seems to point to methods. Great.

Let’s move past that though. That last sentence in the how feels striking to me. Words have meaning almost exclusively in how they relate to other words.

When we answer a why question with a how answer, or a how question with a why answer, we do a disservice to others. Or, instead, let’s take the other view. Most of the people that I know do not care so much about the precise usage of language. Instead of saying that the rest of the world is wrong, let us see if I cannot find a way that I can shift my own views of language.

After all, as Randall Munroe once pointed out, language and communication requires two people. What is different about the language that others use where this does not feel like an issue? Only now, twenty five hundred words later, do I feel like it is a good time to look up and see if there’s anything that others would think

Oh gosh someone pointed out that why and how come have the same usage, though how come is less formal. If we put it into my framework, how come is also a mechanistic explanation? I think? Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it. Oh good, the rest of the internet generally agrees with me that the difference is between process and reason.

I feel really dissatisfied with this end of musing, however. Why? Because I kind of feel like I’ve gotten nowhere after all these words. How? I have failed to answer the question, which is difference in usage.

I probably have time for one more draft. Let’s do everything in our power to focus exclusively on why I think it’s a problem that we answer process questions with reason answers or vice versa. I’m sure that there’s a reason if I stop to think about it.

Draft 2.5: metawriting to figure out how I feel

I have talked about this a number of times. In short, I muse because I find it helpful to my life and growth as a person.

I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly thought about this. This question can be answered in so many ways, with varying levels of granularity.

I muse by posting my thoughts on the blog. I muse by coming up with an idea, writing about it, revising it²¹, and then posting it. I muse by typing words on a digital page. I muse by having thoughts and expressing them.

Because it’s filled with chlorophyll, which is green. That’s also still a mechanism.

Because it doesn’t absorb green light. Because it’s filled with chlorophyll, which is green.

Somehow, despite the fact that both of those answers are the same, it still feels vastly different to me. I don’t actually know if there’s anything more that I can say about that. Let’s try, though.

Draft 2

I’ve been thinking recently about the difference between why and how. The two words have to be different²³, but I’ve been struggling to figure out in what way.²⁴

How feels like something descriptive. That is, I figure out how to end a sentence, because I already know that I’m going to end a sentence. Why, on the other hand, feels prescriptive. If I am figuring out why to end a sentence, it is because I don’t know what its purpose is.

Maybe that’s the way to figure out the difference between how and why: write a few sentences that could use either word and see the way that the meaning changes.²⁵

I’m going to restart this musing, and I will try my best to use either word only intentionally.

Draft 1

While writing my reflection on the readings, I mentioned faith like a child. As I drove to religious ed, I thought about faith like a child, and I thought about faith and science. One half formed memory I have²⁶ was that the difference between faith and science is which questions they seek to answer. Science seeks to answer how, while religion seeks to answer why.

Of course, I then immediately thought about the question that a young child asks. Children do not²⁷ ask how. They ask why. When a child asks why the sky is blue, however, we tend to give how answers.

That bothered me, for a reason that I’m going to try to work through here in this musing.

Ok, so the most obvious bother is that if the difference between why and how is science and faith, and the two live in different domains, then it’s wrong to answer a why with a how. Now that I’ve expressed the concern, I can set it aside.²⁸

I’ll trust that the sentence above describes my concern. At least one of those claims is untrue, so let’s list them.²⁹

Are there other claims? I don’t really think so.³⁰ There may be, however, so I’ll be willing to add to the list if I need to.

Alright, let’s try to answer the claims one at a time, and see if we can’t find the one that isn’t ringing in tune.

There is a difference between science and faith. No, that’s absolutely true. For all that I’ve talked about how science and mysticism are intrinsically linked, the method of discovering knowledge is inherently different. Science is different than math is different than faith.

By that, I mean that science gains knowledge³¹ by measuring and reproducing measurements. Mathematics generates knowledge by testing hypotheses using logic. Faith generates knowledge by divine revelation.

Oh! A claim in there is that why and how are fundamentally different questions. There we go, that’s the sticking point that I have right now.

So let’s see what the difference is between the two. How describes process, while why ascribes meaning? That feels kind of resonant.

That is, how is a descriptive thing, while why is a prescriptive. Ok, that does also work with the difference between faith and science, so let’s run with that take. Now then, what’s wrong with answering why questions with how or vice versa?

Ok, let’s remove the explicit case of the children’s question. Let’s look at the election.

We have a president because we set up a system wherein we elect someone to run the country. That is a why answer to a why question. Oh, yeah, no, that’s definitely the issue.

When a kid asks why the sky is blue, we treat it as though they’re asking how the sky is blue. The sky is blue because air is blue.³² But, why is the sky blue? That’s a much more difficult question to answer. Honestly, there isn’t an answer that I know of for why the sky is blue, other than the fact that the universe was created in such a way to cause the sky to be blue.

When a child asks why we have to go to school, on the other hand, we do give them a prescriptive answer. We have to go to school because it’s good to learn, or something.³³

Ok, so I guess my issue is really just with the answer to why the sky is blue. That is, however the only children’s question about science that I can think of.

If not, does that show me the issue? Is there a way to frame scientific questions that are why based, rather than how based?

I guess those are shades of different meaning, for all that I cannot really point to anything specific about it. However, what is the difference between a child’s response to each of those?

If we assume that a child is an automaton, the child will ask why in response to everything else.

Because the sun emits light across a whole wavelength, maximizing at the green. Why?

Ok that’s also not great. That also does cover the actual why answer, which is slowly leading me to the actual issue I have. Despite the fact that I have different senses of the meaning, my impulse is to answer the why questions more or less interchangeably.

I think I might have fallen too far into the weeds. Let’s pull back and re evaluate.

philosophers and physicists please don’t hate mail me↩︎
in my imagination, at least↩︎
I think↩︎
assuming that we are not disabled↩︎
I assume, and this is where my knowledge falls apart↩︎
I hope that’s a common saying and not one that I stole from I think Discworld? I know that it’s somewhere in the Tiffany Aching series, but I cannot quite remember where↩︎
there we go, it took all day (literally, I’ve spent more than 12 hours working on this musing off and on), but I finally got a why for the post↩︎
wow that’s wild to think about↩︎
as you might expect from the title of the musing today↩︎
true, kind of↩︎
also kind of true↩︎
hmmm this might be the day for the rant, for all that I feel like it’s probably not the musing for it↩︎
I’m not sure whether I went to the most recent Jewish holiday because my family just watched An American Pickle, because the holiday just passed, because my Jewish identity is something I’m forced to reckon with almost daily, or almost any other reason↩︎
even though this is itself somewhat of a mechanistic answer↩︎
I don’t know if the . should be there, but I’m going to leave it, because it’s a statement↩︎
if stereotypes are to believed↩︎
ok that’s a little strong, but I’ve been working on this post for a lot of words and still have no clue what I’m trying to say, so I’m going to go with it↩︎
while is a word that I’m going to be using far too much for the rest of this musing, sorry↩︎
not using why or how except very intentionally is so very hard for me. I’m being very brave.↩︎
ill ease? disease? huh is that where disease comes from? That makes sense↩︎
optionally↩︎
hypothetical. Right now I’m very comfortable↩︎
because otherwise we wouldn’t have both↩︎
why and how both came up in my mind when I tried to figure out how to end the sentence (though not there, which is a clue)↩︎
I just wrote that sentence with a how unthinkingly, and that might be a part of the issue. I’m too thoughtless about the way I use my language.↩︎
which I think I first encountered in a children’s book series about someone who’s a clone of a dead girl raised by the initial girl’s parents (have asked my resident librarian what book that could be -Update: Double Identity by Margaret Peterson Haddix (also wow she wrote a lot of books, many of which were formative to me. As the resident librarian put it “She has written so many objectively twisted but deeply compelling plots”)). Wild how my memory links. Also, now that I’m down the rabbit hole, wow early 2000s child lit was filled with a lot of wild dystopian literature. Then again, I also read Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed, which though not children’s lit (I think) or from the early 2000s, was still messed up. Ok back to the real musing (but new idea just dropped). Also I need to reread and then write about the Patternist series, because there’s so much in there that’s immediately relevant to modern political discourse.↩︎
stereotypically, at least↩︎
because clearly something in that statement is wrong, so I should figure out what↩︎
I’m treating this first draft as something slightly more formalized than free association, but only slightly↩︎
one thing I’m realizing is that the raw tex file that I write contains its own information that gets removed when I convert to HTML. Most of the time, I’m on team line break after each sentence (since a professor taught me how much easier it made editing and seeing edits), which LaTeX ignores (I don’t know if the many conversions I use will break if I try to have special formatting for the word, so I’m going to pretend that the normal orthography (which may or may not be the proper term, depending on how important the positioning of letters is to the meaning of the word) is acceptable). However, every so often I find that I have two sentences that feel like a single thought, and so get to use a single line. Also most footnotes tend to be a single line, which makes me think that I really do use line breaks to signal thought shifts. Wild↩︎
as a discipline, nominally↩︎
among other issues. Generally, though, it’s something about rayleigh scattering, which may or may not be something I’ve vaguely forgotten about.↩︎
the law tells us, or whatnot. There are plenty of other reasons we could give for why kids have to go to school↩︎
because it doesn’t absorb green light↩︎
or scatters, I suppose↩︎
though that’s why chlorophyll is green, I suppose↩︎

On Being Seen

Draft 1

I find that it’s always interesting to learn how others see me. I’d like to think that my own self image of myself hasn’t changed over the years, for all that I know that it has. Without delving too deeply into those, it’s been a long and fun journey to really feel like myself in my own skin, which is something I’m glad for.

But, this musing isn’t about how I see myself. It’s about how others see me. I recently realized, after a few conversations, that the way I am perceived is far different than it once was.

Through high school, I think that I was seen mostly as a member of my family. That’s fair, and that hasn’t really changed.¹ However, that was mostly among people who were, if not friends, then at least one link from a friend or family member. When people saw me not as a member of my family, I know that one of the most common thoughts was that I looked like a football player.²

Even through college, those were both common statements a common statement. More than that, though, I know that I was often viewed as someone who enjoyed violent sports.³ The other day, though, I was at a rugby field with some graduate school friends, I made a comment about how I was considering trying rugby.⁴ The friends I was with both expressed surprise, which made sense to me, at first.

After all, I have never once expressed interest in rugby before, as far as they knew.⁵

However, that was not where the confusion lay. My friends both expressed shock that I would be interested in a physical⁶ sport.⁷

That made me curious. I realized that many of the people I’ve met since starting graduate school express surprise when I tell them that people used to think of me as physically intimidating. I’m only now⁸ realizing that this might have been less an expression of how friendly I am, and more a reflection of a change in the way that I’m generally viewed.

The next day, a friend was apparently talking about me to someone who didn’t know me. My friend described me with many of the common descriptors.⁹ Someone who knew both my friend and the new person commented that I have a nice smile.

I don’t disagree with the idea that I have a nice smile.¹⁰ However, I know that in high school, I was very uncomfortable with my smile. I would do everything in my power to avoid smiling in photos. It does make it a little awkward to show photos of high school me to friends now, though.

Returning to the point, I’m realizing that the way I am perceived frequently differs from the way that people in my life say that they perceive me. I’m sure that there’s some introspection I can do about that, and may in the future.¹¹

literally the other day a person approached me on the street and went “are you a (insert last name (not that any of you reading this blog couldn’t immediately figure out my last name) here)?”, which was wild, given that I’m, as far as I know, the only member of my family to have spent more than a week in the city↩︎
to be fair, I was a football player from middle school through the end of high school, and it was absolutely the sport I felt the most connection to, for all that it’s absolutely not the sport I was objectively best at↩︎
every time that I use that phrase I feel like it’s the wrong one.↩︎
or something similar, I don’t exactly remember↩︎
little do they know that one of my favorite babysitters (not the famous movie star) growing up was a rugby player↩︎
is that the right word? I don’t think so.↩︎
I think that I’m averaging about a footnote per sentence, which says a lot about what I’m thinking in this post↩︎
literally as I write this blog post↩︎
much as I wish that it was one, that did not include “incredibly attractive”. It did, however, include that I dove, like board games, am getting a graduate degree, and do music. It’s a pretty fair summary↩︎
and not just because it’s rude to disagree with people. I do actually like my smile↩︎
not tonight, though, because I’m tired↩︎
I suppose there’s an implicit thing that I’m dancing around↩︎

Dungeons and Dragons Again

Draft 1

As I mentioned in my last musing about dnd, I made a character whose goal is rolling more dice more often. I don’t know if I actually optimized it, especially because a number of friends pointed out that spell slots are functionally infinite, especially in the kinds of combat that I’m likely to see. Next session I get to fifth level, which doubles the number of attacks I can use, potentially doubling the number of dice I roll a turn. That’s pretty nice.

This session, however, was also a great time. We began with a quick little combat, where we saw some demons¹ and began to fight. I missed on my first attack, which was sad, so used an action surge to swing again.

That set me up to be flanked, which did almost all of my remaining hit points². However, I managed to kill one monster on my next turn, and got another with an attack of opportunity. At that point, it was more or less cleanup.

After we defeated the monsters, we were led into a room with puzzles. The puzzles were all fun, and done more or less completely out of character. It’s always fun to have to actually think, rather than simply saying “my character thinks”.

When we managed to solve the riddles, we were given the ability to teleport to waypoints, which feels like it could be a fun mechanic. We were offered the choice to return to the city we had come from, or to teleport further west. Our group chose to go to the West.³

Once there, we discovered a town of tieflings that were being plagued by spirits. The story, as we dug into it, seemed to be that there was a chief who committed abominations⁴, and something something punishment. One of the consequences was that their harvests would rot.⁵ We are currently split, staking out the properties overnight to see what happens.⁶

I think? I’m honestly not entirely sure what their exact bestiary entry was, in part because I am trying to meta game less often↩︎
the blood sacrifice is a feat that I need to play around with to find the most optimal usage I think↩︎
we were explicitly told that we have to all agree to go in order to transport.↩︎
killing turtles and whales↩︎
like in the Disney film Moana↩︎
spoiler, we level up but not much else↩︎
by my friend!!!↩︎

Reflections on Today’s Gospel

Draft 2

I love this set of readings, because each of them speaks to me in a way that I don’t normally feel from the readings. Intellectually, I know that every word in the Bible is beautiful, and each verse leads me closer to Truth. Emotionally, though, I don’t always connect.

I’d like to start with the Psalm.¹ The Psalm today really encapsulates the entirety of the readings. It is the Magnificat, the Canticle of Mary. That is, it is Mary’s response to seeing her cousin Elizabeth while both are carrying their child.

How does this sum up the readings? First, the Magnificat comes when John the Baptist leaps in his mother’s womb. The Gospel today is John’s ministry and preparation for the coming of the Christ.

Finally, it is a song of joy and thanks to the Lord. The Magnificat is a message of joy and hope to the downtrodden and despised. The first reading, from the Prophet, also focuses on this.

The second reading is really just filled with a load of fantastic single lines. I could spend pages discussing more or less every phrase in the reading, but I’ll focus on one in particular.

St. Paul exhorts us to test everything, retaining what is good.² In a conversation with friends yesterday, I was once again reminded that this approach is not the way that everyone is formed in their faith. In a different conversation, someone explained to me that questions can come from a place of judgement or of curiosity. I think that these two conversations point to the same idea: we either seek to find the truth or confirm what we know.

In raising a child, I cannot understand why you would want them to trust unquestioningly. I am reminded of a verse, where we are told that we are to have faith like children. Every child I’ve ever known has wondered endlessly. When they ask why something is true, they then wonder why the response is true. Of course, there is an element of trust there. A child believes what you tell her.

And so, we are reminded that we must have a faith like that. I have hope that the Pharisees in the Gospel were questioning John on those lines. If someone today preached that they had a new way of forgiving sins, I would be incredibly skeptical. How much moreso would it have been for the faithful of the first century.

It is a common statement by Catholics that the Church is either the Truth and Holiness, or the most vile blasphemy possible. We see reminders of that in the Gospel. John is baptizing in the name of the one who is to come, the one who can forgive all sins. It becomes a fulfillment of the Prophets first reading.

Christ’s ministry was one of healing the ill and uplifting the poor. Throughout the history of the Church, it has spread most by the downtrodden. Even today, many of the conversion or reversion stories I hear come from someone who was in a terrible place.

The Prophet reminds us that we are all called to this ministry. The Lord anointed him, sending His Spirit to rest on Isaiah. We receive that same Spirit in baptism, and we are sealed in it during confirmation.

Draft 1

This week’s readings, in a shocking turn of events, are not a struggle for me. Do not get me wrong. I do not sit easily with these readings, completely unaffected. My struggle with these readings is simply in how poorly I live them out.

The first reading comes from the Prophet.⁴ It opens with a really powerful verse,⁵ where we are told a few important facts.

In brief, the Lord anoints us and sends His Spirit on us. When we are given the Spirit, we are given a mission. In the case of the Prophet, the mission is to lift up the downtrodden, and a few specific examples are given.⁶

Of course, we as baptized are anointed and given the Spirit. We too have a mission. As Christ reminds us, everything that Isaiah said was his mission in this verse is also a mission we share. We are to comfort the grieving, set free the prisoners, and strive for justice and liberty.

The second verse is where it shifts outside of the conventional modern Christian framework, though. We are told that Isaiah was sent to proclaim a year of Jubilee. Jubilee is a concept that has completely disappeared from the modern consciousness, for all that it is⁷ an absolutely essential component of a healthy society. In a year of Jubilee, all debts are forgiven.

Now, there are some obvious reasons that we do not have this concept anymore. First, we legally treat corporations as though they are people, and that has bled into the way we discuss things. Copyright⁸ laws are described as letting corporations own the rights to their work, rather than artists. There is no real reason that a corporation should have its debt forgiven, for much the same reason that there is no reason that a corporation or country having debt is inherently a problem.

The reason that debt is a problem to fall into is that we all know that there is a maximum amount of time that we will work. At some point, we will stop producing, and there will be no new income to pay off our debts. Corporations⁹, by contrast, can continue to cycle out workers indefinitely, and so there is no inherent timeline wherein they stop producing income.

Other than the fact that we treat corporations as people, though, the only reasons I’ve seen for not instituting Jubilee are based in the goal of raising corporations above people or in the goal of keeping oppressed down. If we forgive debt, the most common narrative goes, then the companies which issued the debt will be in trouble. Or, as comes up so frequently in discussions about student loans, if we forgive debt, then that just encourages people to take out more loans and live above their means.

In part, that is because of the system we have created, where student debt in particular is nearly impossible to discharge. Even if we did not have a Year of Jubilee, and instead just stopped debts from reaching a point that they are impossible to pay off, then we would see a radical shift in the structure of modern economies. Sorry, didn’t mean to go on a rant here, returning to the readings.

The second reading reminded me of a conversation that I had with friends yesterday. We were discussing, among other things, our own relationships to the faiths that our parents had raised us with. One stark difference between us was that I was raised with the belief that, not only was it ok to question what we are taught, it is actively good. It’s always nice when the Bible supports the take that you have.

St. Paul writes that we should test everything, retaining what is good.¹⁰ I do believe that statement would do wonders in helping the world as we know it. However, it is a difficult statement to practice.

How do we know what is good? Even outside of the concept of forming a conscience, there is the issue of large scale differences. What is good for an individual may be bad for society, or the reverse.¹¹ How should we balance the conflicting needs of a group to have its members in good condition and each member to live to his or her fullest? I’m not really sure, and that’s just an immediate issue that comes to mind with the question.

However, the existence of edge cases does not preclude heuristics.¹² That is,¹³ the fact that there are times that a general principle does not apply does not mean that it doesn’t work in general. If I say, for instance, that children are short, “all” is absolutely implicit in that statement. Even if we find a child who is tall¹⁴, that does not mean that most children do not remain short.

And so, there are obviously cases where we can look at things and see that they are harmful. Modern psychology agrees that believing that you are unable to improve yourself harms you. Going into the spiritual, believing that to question your faith is to not believe it will lead you either to an unfulfilled life, where you cannot say what you truly believe, or a life where you lose your faith as you question it. Any other examples I can think of are too emotionally charged, and so I’ll leave them as an exercise to the reader.

Right, the second reading reminds us that we are to confront the beliefs that we have, making sure that they lead ourselves and the world to the Lord, our G-d.

I normally skip the Psalm, but I love the Canticle¹⁵ of Mary, which were the verses.¹⁶

And finally, we make our way to the Gospel. I think that this was the first year that I realized that John was doing his preaching while Jesus lived his own private life. As much as I know and truly believe that Christ was born around 30 years before he died, the lack of anything between his childhood and public ministry sometimes makes me forget that they must have happened. While John was preaching his message of repentance, Christ was working in his earthly father’s shop.¹⁷

There’s absolutely something worth meditating on there. First, there’s the statement that Christ makes, which is that whatever we do to the least of people, that we have done to him. I can imagine someone going to baptism in the Jordan, and then seeing Christ in his home. Somehow, they cannot see that the Lord is incarnate in front of them.

More than that, though, it is a reminder that everything has its season. If Christ had begun his public ministry in the Temple when his parents found him as a child, we would not have had the St. John the Baptist. That would have meant that a number of prophecies went unfulfilled.

And, of course, it is here that we see the Pharisees doing as St. Paul commands. They hear that a man is baptizing and preaching repentance. Unsure what that means, they go to question him. John replies honestly.

He is not Elijah, nor the Prophet, nor the Christ. He is simply the voice in the desert¹⁸ telling us to prepare the way.

Ok, this musing got a little out of hand, I think that I should revise it. First, though, there’s bound to be a way to tie the first reading to the Gospel. I can’t think of one, though, so I guess I’ll just have to hope that inspiration strikes while I write the next draft.

shocking, I know, given that I never write about the Psalm↩︎
1 Thes 5: 21↩︎
unsurprisingly, I guess↩︎
Given that in the Gospel today, John calls him Isaiah the prophet (note lower case), I wonder whether I’m supposed to not call him the Prophet either. Not worth my time to look up right now, but it is something that I’m curious about, so should look up at some point (I just know that I’m distractable enough right now that I would go down at least two rabbit holes before returning to the musing↩︎
Is 61:1↩︎
yes, I recognize that they all apply to the people of Israel, but words can have multiple meanings, and I’m allowed to take the meaning that I want from a reading (as long as it lies within the acceptable interpretations, and as long as I don’t lead anyone to error in doing so. Not acknowledging one of the interpretations of the reading doesn’t fit there, I don’t think)↩︎
in my opinion, at least↩︎
I promise we’re not getting into one of my internal rants about copyright, for all that I do feel like the Church’s implied teaching is contrary to the understanding that most people I know have.↩︎
I’m going to switch to calling a country a corporation, because it is in many regards↩︎
1 Thes 5: 21↩︎
I’m here taking the case of things which are explicitly beneficial for any individual who does them, but harmful for society, and the reverse. Things which help some people and harm others are in the forming conscience↩︎
I think that I need to get that message emblazoned somewhere in large letters. I guess it’s a little too formal for a lot of discussion, but it’s certainly something I need to remember more.↩︎
ah, the good old id est (literally Latin for that is, often abbreviated i.e.), also known as “I did a bad job explaining but I like the way the words taste, so I’m going to keep them but try again for something comprehensible”↩︎
also what is tall?↩︎
I love the word canticle so much, because it means basically what you’d expect it to mean: something that’s kind of like a song but not really↩︎
I don’t think that verse is the right word, but I don’t know if I’ve ever learned a different one↩︎
I assume, given that he’s called a carpenter and that most people would have been working in the family business in those days I think↩︎
the change in punctuation still bothers me, but I haven’t cared enough to look up why, so I guess it doesn’t actually bother me that much↩︎

On Ratings

Draft 2

What’s the point of rating anything? Ok, that’s a little broad, let’s try that again.¹

A friend asked me to think about five star ratings for books, especially on the pseudo public platforms which aggregate ratings. As I thought about that question, I came to a number of potential responses.

First, I think that five is too many options. Really, I think that you only need two, maybe three if you want to be mean. The two would be enjoyed or did not enjoy, and the third could be for did not finish if you wanted to separate books you read all the way through. I would be very happy with just the two ratings, though.

So, what do I do when I’m given five stars? There’s an impulse to only use one and five star ratings² However, that feels lacking. If I’m painting in black and white, I shouldn’t just ignore the shades of grey³ just because they’re new and scary.

So, let’s consider how I could use five stars. One star could be the third bin that I had before, books that I could not finish because they were so poorly written. Thankfully, very few books that I’ve encountered fall into this category, if only because most people who put books out in a public enough form that I find them have a competent grasp on the English language.⁴

Five stars would have to be the absolute favorite books ever written. The kind of books that you can’t stop talking about when you read them, to the point that your friends feel obligated to either end the friendship or read the book themselves.

Even though I like shades of grey, I’ve always admired paintings that work in shades of black.⁵ And so, I can find a use for two stars: books that I didn’t finish because I didn’t enjoy them. These would be books that I’m certain others would enjoy, I just wasn’t one of them when I encountered it.⁶

Four stars would be books that I really liked, but that I haven’t made into a facet of my personality. And, of course, that leaves three stars to hold the rest of the books, the majority of what I read.⁷

But, this is a single dimensional view of the process. For all that⁸ I do think that most books I read fit that scale, it does have some gray areas. Between a book with an astounding concept and fair⁹ execution and a book that brings nothing new to the genre but does what it sets out to perfectly, which deserves a higher score? As I once dove,¹⁰ I then find a use for the fractional stars.¹¹

In diving, two criteria determine your score: how well you did the dive and how hard the dive was. The difficulty of the dive modifies how much the points for your dive are worth. Doing that, I could have a few modifiers and apply them to my base score, putting books in the correct bin as needed.

Of course, this single bin approach to diving works because we can generally agree what the optimal dive looks like.¹² Books, however, serve a variety of purposes, and what makes a book successful in one domain is often what precludes its success in another. Most modern sites are aware of this fact, and allow for tagging of books so that people can remember that one book is a cozy pastoral fantasy¹³ and another is a fast paced exploration of morality.¹⁴

Then, of course, the rubric breaks down. I now, on some level, need to have separate rubrics for each tag and combination of tags. This all ignores the fact¹⁵ that modern sites aggregate the data. Here we come to a new issue.

I, like most people, am aware on some level that my time on this earth is finite. I do not have the time to read every book that comes out in a given month, let alone every book that comes out every month. And so, I rely on the aggregation of other readers in deciding what to read, at least on some level.¹⁶ This comes with a conundrum.

When I rate something with four stars, it falls below a book that I rate with five stars. And so, all the different criteria end up collapsing into that same rating system I introduced at the start of the musing: good¹⁷ or bad¹⁸. I’ve heard it described as five stars means you were ok with it, and everything below five is how much you disliked it, which isn’t that far off from the way that ratings end up playing out.

Draft 1

Yesterday a friend asked me about my feelings on five star scales. As I thought about it a little more, though, I realized that I have a lot of feelings about rating systems in general. Today seems like as good of a place as any to discuss how I feel about them.

Rating systems, especially as they exist now, suffer from the tragedy of the commons.²⁰ Most rating systems are not used for individuals, but for public ranking. That’s an issue, for a lot of reasons.

If I have five stars to rate every book I read, for instance, there are a few ways that I could do it. Assuming that 0 stars is not an option, of course, I only have five categories to place absolutely everything I read. There are few easy books to place.

First, there are the books that I read over and over, finding something different in them each time. The sort of books that we love because they feel able to grow with us just as much as we grow. They, obviously, would get five stars.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are a lot of things that I’ve read that I could not get more than a few pages into²² because there was absolutely no sense of grammar, tense, or spelling. An argument could be made that ratings should be reserved for books I’ve finished, and not for everything I’ve tried to read. Of course, if I have a rating system, I want it to be a record that I can use in the future. Since that’s true, I want to show everything that I’ve attempted to read.

So, that’s one star and five stars taken care of. What about books that I couldn’t get through, just because I didn’t enjoy them? It feels very unfair to put them at the same place as books that I couldn’t read because they were illegible²³, which implies that I should put it at two stars.

Looking at the other direction, there are a lot of books that I enjoyed, but would not plan to reread because I don’t think that there’s anything more that I want to gather from the book.²⁴ Or, there are books that I plan to reread, not because I find that they are thought provoking or help me grow, but because they’re comfortable. Similar to a nice bowl of Kraft brand mac and cheese, sometimes you aren’t looking for the best, simply the most familiar.

And that leaves one star for everything else I read. Three stars would mean that I finished the book, and either didn’t enjoy it, or don’t plan to reread. Honestly, most books that I read should fall here, if we think that stars should be averaged. Then again, if I consider that I know what I like to read, it would make sense that the books I read would generally be above the baseline.

Of course, this creates an immediate tension. Five stars works best if there’s even distribution between categories. For instance, if I put all books that I did not finish as one star, I then have four stars to granulate my feelings, rather than simply three. Others might immediately point out that fractional stars exist.

Honestly, I find that fractional stars start to become worse than useless for me very quickly. Once I get above general feelings of no, sure, yes, and absolutely²⁵, I don’t think it’s fair to grade books on a single axis. How do I compare a book that has fantastic ideas but less than stellar execution with a book that is not as thought provoking but does what it attempts perfectly? As a diver, there’s the voice in my head that says you add modifiers.

For those who don’t know, points in diving come from two, arguably separable places. First, there’s the score that the judges give. The sum of the three middle judges’ scores²⁶ is the first point in scoring. In that regard, it is optimal to make sure that any dive you do is done to the absolute highest score possible.

However, there is a secondary consideration. Each dive is assigned a degree of difficulty. That value is multiplied by the first score to produce the final score for a dive. In that regard, it is optimal to attempt the most difficult dive possible, because it has the highest modifier.

Of course, since diving is a sport judged by humans, there are elements of bias. Dives that land on hands, for instance, tend to be scored more favorably than dives which end on feet. More than that, though, a lot of judges are more forgiving of small errors in more difficult dive, whether because it’s difficult to see every part of a more complex dive or because it just seems more impressive.

Before each meet, a diver therefore needs to consider how best to balance doing a dive well and doing a difficult dive. Returning to the book, it could make sense to make modifiers. Of course, since we’re still²⁷ only on the single person use case for ratings. I don’t need to have hard numbers, especially if I read books fairly often. Having vague ideas of the modifiers I want to apply is probably good enough.

Now, the astute might notice that diving does collapse those two scores into one at the end. I could, in theory, do the same. However, I do not always want to read the same thing. I tend to have around ten books in my currently reading shelf. If we look at them, I can categorize them as²⁸

It isn’t fair to compare a beach read to a literature book, especially because the very things that make one good in its own genre are³¹ what would make it bad in the other genre or what disqualifies it. Now, of course, nearly every book sorting site has ways of adding categories to the books you read. If I then just rank each book with its modifiers and tags, I can sort the tagged books when I want to recommend or reread something. And, to some extent, that could work.

However, there are more than two factors that I want to consider. As much as it kind of feels wrong to say³², the politics that the author espouses in a book are relevant to how much I enjoy them. A book that has an interesting premise, is well written, but concludes with statements like how slavery is fundamentally a good thing, is not something that I want to recommend, if only because I don’t want anyone in my life to think that I think slavery is fundamentally good.³³

So, we get to the point that reducing everything to a single number becomes somewhat meaningless. However, as I alluded to earlier, the danger with ratings is that they do not exist in a void. When I rate something, the ratings generally become somewhat public. Now, there’s a new level of consideration that I have to use.

On the one hand, I want to give accurate and useful ratings for my own purposes. On the other, I also want the authors I like to succeed. I know that a lot of people actively sort to find the highest ranked books within a genre. Truth be told, I cannot say that I am too different.

Of course, this does lead to a bit of a chicken and egg issue. The fact that only high rated books get read means that people are more likely to give anything they like five stars, which means that the quality of anything with less than five stars starts to drop dramatically. On one site I read often, grammar that is nearly impossible to understand is still given a three star by some commenters.³⁴ As this cycle continues, each feeds more and more into the other, making it so that the rating system would really be best served by a simple positive or negative. I remember seeing that Netflix had switched to that, and I think they found it was more effective for what they wanted.

So, right now I’ve only discussed books and rating them on a five point scale.³⁵ I think that most of the lessons that I want to hit on are more or less the same. Time to revise this and see if we can’t make the writing sparkle a little more. Might be worth framing the whole thing as “start from yes no, then grow into five stars, then grow into multi dimension that collapses, then go to tags, then back”, because there’s fun in dramatic irony.

I’ve realized that opening with an overly casual tone helps me to write better. Or, at least, it feels better to me. I wonder if readers feel the same way↩︎
I’m not even getting into fractional stars right now, because I hate them as a concept. If you want ten points, have the scale go to ten. The only reason I’ll give diving a pass on this is that the cards they use are set up in a really pretty pattern to make a number or the number and a half work well. I still think that it would be worthwhile to do integers, but I’ll respect their choice to have smaller numbers↩︎
one of these days I’ll figure out when I was anglicized (almost anglicised wow) into thinking that gray was spelled with an e↩︎
or can hire someone who does↩︎
yes I know that definitionally there is a single shade of black. However, as a person with limited vocabulary, I fully acknowledge that there is a spectrum of color that I would call black even if I can distinguish the hues from each other. I’ve seen some beautiful art that plays with that a a concept↩︎
the idea that what I enjoy is variable will come back later↩︎
realistically, since I know what I like, I have far more fours than threes↩︎
you’re welcome. (if you know what this is a reference to, that message is for you. otherwise feel free to ignore↩︎
I love that fair counts as failing in a lot of places. It’s like words mean nothing. Oh, wait, that’s the theme of the musing today. Never mind↩︎
I just wrote this sentence and I’m already struggling to parse it. Readers that I know exist, is the same true for you?↩︎
much as I am loathe to↩︎
infinite flips and spins executed perfectly↩︎
readers, you know what I’m talking about↩︎
don’t immediately have a book to place to this, but I’m sure that there’s at least a few that I’ve read. Oh, I suppose that the one Discworld book where Vimes gets possessed by the Summoning Dark would be that. Or Mort, or any of the Death Books. Wow look at that↩︎
I keep wanting to use of course, which makes sense, because I’ve thought about this a lot and already written a draft today. If my thoughts aren’t obvious to me right now, that’s an issue↩︎
honestly, these days most of what I read comes from a single recommendation, so I guess this maybe works for me the abstract reader, not me the physical body. Oh, also a lot of books I just pick up in the library because they look interesting (in their titles, since they’re by and large textbooks or academic texts that aren’t in CS, the covers aren’t pretty), which also doesn’t have aggregation information other than implicitly, since the library chose to stock it↩︎
five stars↩︎
one star↩︎
it’s wild that I’m at the point that a chord sheet (I think that’s what they’re called) is enough for me to play a song I know↩︎
ok so I fully recognize that the tragedy of the commons is a completely ahistorical idea, given that commons were famously well maintained by everyone. However, it’s a phrase that works well enough right now↩︎
not that I think any of my readers couldn’t do this on their own, just that it feels like it could be useful for me to do this for myself↩︎
if even that↩︎
is that the right word? kind of feels like it shouldn’t since I have a lot of internal ideas about legibility being a handwriting thing. A quick search tells me it’s understandable, so I guess it works. Weird↩︎
initially I said either, but I can’t think of another reason that I wouldn’t reread a book. Maybe my imagination is just lacking these days↩︎
honestly, the fact that I have a four point scale for life and that these are the four points does say a lot about me↩︎
so in 5 judge situations, they drop the high and low score each time. Since judges aren’t themselves being judged, it doesn’t matter whose score gets dropped in cases where multiple judges give the same score (actually, as I think about it, there was a statistic on some of the report sheets I’ve seen from meets with rankings of judges based on how often their scores were taken. I wonder if someone’s ever explored that). In three judge meets, all scores get taken. I think that you’re not supposed to have even numbers of judges, for the obvious reason↩︎
a little over a thousand words in. This musing will absolutely need a second draft↩︎
using the current shelf plus things I know that I’m planning to start in the next few days↩︎
i.e. books that have merit but are not written to be beach reads↩︎
i.e. books that don’t ask thoughts from me or that I can read while distracted.↩︎
is↩︎
ooh, I should explore why at some point↩︎
I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that, but here we are↩︎
who fully acknowledge that they have trouble parsing the sentences↩︎
and a little bit of diving, but that’s its own different thing↩︎

Flash Fiction Friday

Draft 1

It’s another Friday,¹ which means it’s time for another installment in Flash Fiction Friday Fthinking.² The prompt this week is “A promise to break”. The prompt givers implied that it was a promise which would be broken, but that is not where my mind went.

I’m immediately reminded of a line in Seanan McGuire’s Middlegame, which I don’t remember perfectly, and so will not attempt to quote. The gist of the line, though, is about compelling someone to continue, rather than stop. I’m not totally sure how that reminded me of the prompt, except that I read it as a promise to break something.

Breaking is an inherently dynamic action, which makes it good for me, a person who struggles to have plots, especially in flash fiction. So, if we assume that there’s a promise which involves breaking, what does that require?

On some level, it requires two entities. I suppose that one can, in theory, make a promise to oneself, but that feels not like the story I want to tell here.

I’m debating between realism, fantasy, and sci fi. If scifi, there’s the option of like “when the barrier falls do X”, which is similar for fantasy. Actually, the FFF I’ve written since coming back from hiatus have all been shades of realism. Let’s lean into the fantastic, just for a day.

Given that it’s now very late out, I find that I want to write a sonnet to respond to the prompt, because I don’t really have the energy³ to do a story, the rest of this blog, and muse. As I walked home, though, I ran into an issue. When I think of fantasy poetry, I think of ballads and ballad form, which is in triple meter. I am currently in a sonnet phase, which requires iambic pentameter. Still, there’s nothing saying I can’t just go for it. Will report back when finished.

So, it wasn’t the best sonnet that I’ve ever written, but it certainly wasn’t the worst either. All in all, I think that I’m actually pretty happy with it. I managed to tell a narrative, and that’s really what’s important.

Now, readers of the blog might wonder what kept me from writing all day. In order, there was a department party, a secret santa⁴ reveal, a thesis defense and accompanying celebrations, and then two parties. Each lasted just a little bit longer⁵ than I was expecting, but I don’t regret the time at all. Time with people is never time wasted.

more like Fri-yay, am I right?↩︎
I’m sure that I could have come up with a better word, but it’s still early and I’m developing a burgeoning caffeine addiction↩︎
or, quite frankly, the time left in the day↩︎
officially snowflake, but we’ll ignore that↩︎
or, in the case of the second party, quite a bit longer↩︎
because I did it in public both times, the second of which was at the second party, where everyone gathered around and sang silent night↩︎
there has to be a better way to say that, but I cannot think of it right now, I’m sorry↩︎

Book Review of Fundamentals of the Faith

Draft 1

I’ve officially accomplished one of my goals for the month, and I’ve finished a book from my currently reading shelf. The book is Fundamentals of the Faith by Peter Kreeft. It’s a just under three hundred page book of apologetics about the Catholic Faith.

Now, there are many ways that I approach these book reviews.¹ One piece that I feel like is a fairly common aspect of them is my explaining how I came to the book. This book, at least, has a fairly interesting story, which makes it one I want to share right now.

Since coming to graduate school, I’ve had the chance to meet a lot of fantastic people. Last year, I helped teach religious education, and chatted a fair amount with one of the teachers for another age group. This past year, she had discerned joining a religious order, and offered me a book of essays. Of course, when someone who radiates holiness² offers you a book, it seems only prudent to read it.

So, of course, I waited almost six months before starting the book. From the first page, though, I was hooked on it. Kreeft strikes the difficult balance between incisive wit and deep broad truth.

As much as I’d meant for this musing to be a long reflection on the book, it’s late enough right now that I would really rather be asleep. A few brief thoughts before that happens:

As a faithful Catholic, he did, of course, profess extra ecclesiam nulla salus. As a faithful Catholic, he did, of course, also point out that what we consider the Church and what the Almighty considers the Church are not always perfectly aligned. In discussing that, he also brought up the parable of the man who keeps hiring more workers to his vineyard.

My entire life, that parable has placed cradle Catholics³ in the position of those hired first. Kreeft inverts that. We, as Catholics, do legitimately have an easier path to salvation⁴ by virtue of knowing exactly what the Lord wants us to do and how He wants to be worshipped. It was striking to consider that, in many regards, I do have an easier time finding Truth than those outside of the faith.

The other most striking aspect of the book was its claim to absolute truth. As a scientist, one of the most fundamental aspects of the field is that no knowledge is certain. Everything is either theory⁵ or law⁶. Nothing is inherently true, and to do science correctly requires, on some level, a willingness to find that everyone else has always been wrong.

In the midst of a culture that is incredibly relativist right now, the fact that Kreeft was so willing to say that not only is the Church true, but it is the Truth, was really striking to me. Also, he continually brought up the fact that the most central teaching of the Church is not being kind to our neighbors or loving G-d, or anything else like that. The most central tenant of our faith is that Jesus Christ, True G-d and True man, was incarnate and died for our sins.⁷

That was something that I’ve found myself coming back to as I consider the book. For most of the modern history of the Church, it was reasonable to assume that everyone was familiar with the explicit teachings of the faith, and so we could discuss the secondary considerations. In a time before relativism, it was valuable to explain how Christianity is like other faiths, who have their own piece of the truth. Nowadays, as the normal belief is that belief systems are more alike than different, the opposite tack is needed.

Anyways, all this to say, I really enjoyed the book, and I feel like I should read more explicitly Catholic creative nonfiction in the next year.

I think. I’m not going to actually fact check that claim right now, though.↩︎
as she did when last I saw her↩︎
like me↩︎
as he claims, at least. I think that there’s something to be said about to whom much is given, much is expected, but that’s a discussion for when I’m more awake↩︎
hypothesis that has yet to be disproven by data↩︎
model that works↩︎
I mean that’s already at least four or five things, but you get what I mean↩︎
as evidenced by my writing a musing on it↩︎

On Teaching Crochet

Draft 1

First, I want to apologize for the url for this posting.¹ As much as I do think that it is important for the urls I use to be meaningful, I have more and more begun to realize that I am not yet good at using command line, and so can only find blog posts by the beginning of their names. Since this post is about teaching crochet, it could easily be teaching-crochet. However, since I am pretty sure that I’m going to be reflecting more on the crochet than the teaching, I think that it’s worthwhile for me to have the title focus on crochet, rather than teaching.²

Anyways, today I helped teach some friends and colleagues how to crochet. I hadn’t realized quite how ingrained the muscle memory was for me, but I found that I kept needing to go far slower than I expected to explain a concept. Understanding the way that the yarn moves and needs to move to make crochet work is something that becomes intuitive, but certainly does not begin as such.

We were trying to make granny squares, which may not have been the best idea, in retrospect. The first fifteen or so stitches in a granny square look really ugly even if doing everything correctly, and it can be difficult to understand where mistakes arose when they inevitably do. I got to practice a little bit of classroom management, though, which was really nice.

I’m realizing that I might be the only one who cares about what URL I use, but that’s not going to stop me here↩︎
and yes, I do realize that this could all be avoided if I learned how to use either sed or grep or most likely both, but I don’t know if I want to learn magic just yet.↩︎

On Blogging

Draft 1

Wow, five years ago I was posting my theatre final for my blog post. It’s really interesting to me how much my view of this blog has changed since starting it. As Hanukkah starts to wind down,¹ and the semester² does as well, I think it could be fun to explicitly muse on why I’m doing these musings, and why I started initially.

As the header for this site implies, one major reason that I write my blog is because my father does. He had his own reasons for wanting to blog, which, if I remember correctly, include wanting to leave us a legacy and wanting a space to answer questions that he frequently received. Another reason that I initially began this blog was because I wanted my friends and family to be able to keep up with my exploits and adventures while I studied abroad. I think that the only other reason that matters is that I was in a class on diaries which assigned us to keep a diary. I argued³ that blogging is a modern form of diary, one which comes with its own benefits and drawbacks.⁴

Of course, I, like every writer under a commitment, then struggled to find something to write about literally every day.⁵ One way that I got around this⁶ was by posting my different writing assignments to the blog. In some regards, I’ve kept up with that, however slightly. These days, I tend to use the platform to iterate on ideas, but don’t actually put the text of my assignments or other writing into the blog.

One reason is that I don’t know if I want this blog to be widely attached to my name. I’m going to keep it up indefinitely, but that doesn’t mean that I want it to be easily accessed. Right now, it’s actively not SEO⁷ optimized, and there’s no direct link from the main site,⁸ or even my subsection⁹ of the site. It is linked on my GitHub, which a colleague pointed out. Still, I don’t think that’s too much of an issue.

However, the more that direct text is copied between the blog and other sources, the more that they can be tied together. My writing tumblr, for instance, is nominally anonymous. I’d really rather all of my writing stay, at least in theory, separated from my personal self.

Other than that, though, as I keep doing funded research, I am more and more concerned about accidentally leaking private research information or causing our research to get scooped. That’s probably a baseless concern, but it’s easier to stay in a habit of not leaking data than to have to develop it after graduate school.

In part, it’s about holding myself accountable. The daily reflections I post force me to, if only for a second, go through my mental checklist of the day and see how well I did. More than that, though, the daily reflections remind me that I need to do things every day. The number of times that I’ve been getting ready to go to sleep, read something like “did I drink water today?” and then drunk water¹⁰ is almost embarrassingly high.

One portion of the original inspiration that still remains is that I do still want to be more like my father in more ways. He has¹¹ a sign with the quote “no matter how tall I grow, I still look up to my father”¹². I know that he has his own personal relationship to the saying, and that I have mine. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ve ever told him that the sign has meaning to me.¹³ Writing this lets me feel connected to him in a new way, which is really nice.

A major reason that has evolved from the original inspiration is keeping track of my life. I originally made the blog so that friends and family could theoretically feel like they knew how my hours passed. Looking back on the posts, though, I am reminded of my own memories there, especially the ones that I did not explicitly record.

Not finally but finally for my reflection tonight, I find that writing these musings makes me more reflective. I’ve talked a lot about how I want to improve at craft, but, as I mentioned recently, I also struggle with expressing why I have goals or arguments. I want to be better at the craft of writing so that I can better communicate in whatever endeavors I choose to spend my days following. I want to be better at communicating because I do, deep down, believe that I have insights and ideas that could help the world and lead people to Christ. Honing my craft allows me to be more effective at spreading whatever small scale message I want to spread, in addition to the larger meta goal.

For all that¹⁴, being reflective is an end in itself. As my recent posts have demonstrated¹⁵, my thoughts on a subject can and often do change rapidly and wildly if I take the time to verbalize¹⁶ them. In basically every post I’ve revised recently, the later drafts are not only more polished, but they argue something different, sometimes even contradictory to the earlier drafts. I find that my ability to sort through my thoughts is improving. Even if it were not, though, the fact that I am thinking more deeply is a goal in and of itself.

So, while I don’t think that I’m going to get back into the habit of posting drafts of my class assignments to this blog¹⁷, I do still intend to keep writing these posts. What has this musing done to help with my goals of: being like my father, being more reflective, keeping track of my time, and keeping myself accountable?¹⁸ I don’t really know. Today was an uneventfully eventful day¹⁹, and I²⁰ don’t want to make my private life quite this public yet, and didn’t touch on any of the events that happened. I thought again about why I’m keeping up this blog, which is something that I do at least monthly, and so might not have needed to spend an entire post on.

Oh, I did just think of another reason that I’m writing this blog still. As I’ve mentioned a few times, there’s a site I use to motivate my writing these days. It encourages putting out a large quantity of words, and a daily blog post is a way for me to generate more words.

Sorry, aside aside²¹, I do think that reflecting explicitly is still good, especially since I think that this might be the first time that I actually explicitly stated why I want to get better at writing. And, of course, there’s going to be the daily reflection at the end, which will hopefully help with the final portions.

side note, I forgot how nice it is to write by candlelight. Even though I also have a real lamp, there’s something about the dynamic movement of a burning candle or candles that really makes all writing feel more special. Starting each morning with a burning candle and hand writing a letter is probably something I would do well to bring back↩︎
allegedly, I’m somewhat removed from it right now↩︎
apparently somewhat successfully, to the point that I apparently got cited in an article the professor wrote about diary↩︎
Let’s see if I can’t find it. Aha! It was my fifth post. Hmm I think that I also posted the paper somewhere. Let’s see if we can’t find that too. Aha! there it is. I love that I posted these things publicly, even if I would never dream of doing so now. Then again, I do know that a large number of academics have taken to posting their papers on their sites, so maybe it’s going to come back for me. Where was I?↩︎
also to find somewhere new to take a photo, but that’s only somewhat tangentially related.↩︎
a dear friend and reader pointed out that I use the phrase “for all that” very regularly in my writing. I don’t mind that fact, but it’s probably healthy for me to start writing outside of what I’m perfectly comfortable with. Or, rather, (wow, look at that), I think that in my month of working on form, it’s probably in my best interest to interrogate the habits I have when writing (somehow distinct from writing habits)↩︎
i hate that people call it seo optimized, because that’s search engine optimization optimized, and that feels redundant. Then again, I suppose it’s not technically wrong, so I guess I’ll put the optimized in the real text↩︎
rebelsky.com, a domain that doesn’t point anywhere↩︎
which right now just links to music (huh I didn’t realize that I’d made most of the scores I’ve written available there. Might be worth using to point people to when they want to perform my music (read: when I’ve convinced them to perform it))↩︎
I did refill my water bottle and drink water just now↩︎
had? I don’t know the last time I saw it, but I’m sure that he didn’t get rid of it↩︎
or something to that effect↩︎
dad, if you’re reading this, love you, and also thanks for reading, sorry I’m so behind on yours so often↩︎
If you were waiting for this to show up in the main text, you’re welcome↩︎
to me, at least,↩︎
or whatever you’d call writing as a format↩︎
not that I really get assignments like that anymore. The only officially prescribed writing I have left for my degree is the thesis and any papers I publish. I know that I’ll need to make handouts for differnet classes that I’m in, but that’s its own can of worms and we’ll see how I feel about doing more or less work once the term begins↩︎
wow, the meta reflection, look at that↩︎
in that it could have been a day that fundamentally altered the trajectory of my life in a massive way visible in the moment (not that every day couldn’t, but in that this was a scheduled event) (wow vagueblogging is hard), but did not end up doing so↩︎
unlike my father, in some regards, at least↩︎
wow that is a fun and technically grammatical construction↩︎
wow look at that, this one came out by accident↩︎
it really did, and I might have to continue doing this↩︎
random versus grid is always such a tough call↩︎

Open Mic

Draft 2

I meant to write a simple accounting of my first time playing at an open mic in a few months. My muse, however, wanted to talk about the way that music feels. There is something really special in instruments that are not fixed pitch.

I was chatting with one of the astronomers today about the fact that they had recently acquired a piano. They were amazed at how fun it is to just play, especially when you can do so with friends or family. I don’t disagree, for all that I’m now realizing the very thing that makes piano so instantly rewarding is also what makes learning guitar so much deeper to me.

On a piano, there is a sense of removal from the note you are making. You press a button which activates a hammer which hits a string. There is no way to make the string slightly higher or lower with your strike. Each note is tuned to an exact specification¹. Knowing one chord shows you the hand position for most other chords, and the same is true for scales and notes. It is easy to make any sound appear, which is part of why the ceiling feels so far away from what the average person does. Not even the ceiling, honestly.

This could spiral off into a whole discussion about how the easier it is to make the correct sound on an instrument, the more that mastery is defined in the ability to do far more. However, I don’t want to talk about piano tonight. Instead, let us look at guitar by contrast.

Guitar chords are generally broken into around two categories.² There are open chords, where some strings ring freely while others are fretted individually by specific fingers, and there are barre chords, where a simple chord shape is moved higher up the neck by virtue of pressing the index finger to effectively raise the pitch of the instrument by half tones.

There are around five open chord shapes that tend to be used: C, G, D, A and E.³ D, A, and E can all be major or minor, while C and G can only really be major.

When barring,⁴ by contrast, most of the time only E and A shapes are used. I still find that most barre chords sound more or less the same, as they have the same quality of all strings being fretted.

The five-ish open chords, by contrast, each have their own unique sound profile.⁵ At tonight’s open mic, one of the songs I did was in E minor, and really spent most of its time there. There’s something really magical about the E minor chord, for all that I don’t really use it in that way normally.

I’ve noticed that with many instruments, the lowest note that they can reasonably play is a little more powerful than the rest. On cello, when playing the open C string, the entire instrument seems to vibrate. On guitar, every string shares some resonance with the low E string. If you pluck and silence it, the upper two strings will continue sounding, since they lie exactly on its harmonic series.

E minor is also the triad that requires the fewest alterations from the way that the guitar is tuned. As someone who’s started to explore DADGAD and other open tunings, there is something really inspiring about a droning note and open guitar strings. With E minor, you get both the benefit of many open strings and the benefit of having the lowest note sounding.

Just by altering which strings you emphasize on strokes, the sound can go from dark and brooding to an almost angry beat, like something calling warriors to arms. I hope that I remember this as I start writing music again, because I think that there’s absolutely a place in my album for a driven beat song.

Draft 1

Well, time always passes. Somehow, it’s been just over 4 months since the last time that I went to an open mic. Some might be asking why, a mere ten days before the longest night of the year, I chose to play there again.

This past Saturday, I was at the bar for an unrelated reason, and the waiter mentioned that the open mics had moved to be much earlier. One reason that I had stopped going was the fact that I generally try to get to bed somewhere around 9 most nights, and the open mic did not start before then. As a result, I was forced to choose between playing in public and getting sleep. Nowadays, though, the open mic has been moved to start closer to seven or eight, depending on the week. That in mind, I showed up very early, had a few tacos, and then played a set.

I wish that I could say the entire set went flawlessly. Or, failing that, I wish that I could say something went so terribly wrong that I can tell stories about it for ages to come. Alas, neither happened. My guitar wasn’t getting picked up, for whatever reason⁶, and so I had a brief moment of panic. Thankfully, the man who runs the open mics lent me his guitar, and I was off to go.

I started with an original.⁷ Ashes went really well, and I didn’t miss the intro to the chorus like I tend to. Still, applause was somewhat muted for it.

Since it’s been a while since my last open mic⁸, I went with a great standby and did Maid on the Shore. I really started to get into my stride during that song, and I saw at least a few people tapping along to the song, which is always nice. The emcee⁹ said that I had time for one more song, and I knew just what to do. It’s nearly Christmas, so I did one of my favorite Advent/ Christmas songs, The Angel Gabriel.¹⁰ It went well, though the fact that I was playing it on a different guitar than normal meant that it did not go quite as well as normal. Still, it was really fun, and I got even more applause for my final song. A few people complimented me after my set, which is always nice.

I forgot how much more fun guitar is with fresh strings. I just put them on yesterday, and it’s amazing how much better the tone is, and how much better my fingers seem to move. More than that, though, it is as though the guitar pulls more sound out of my voice.

In general, I have noticed that I’m starting to like my singing voice more lately. I think that a lot of it is because of an off handed comment that my choir director made. He said that in one of the songs we did, we should really lean into the baritone growl. I had forgotten about that vocal register, and I do really think that it’s where my tone is best, at least from the inside. Given that the open mic plays the amp slightly back at the performer, though, I do think that it also sounds at least a little better from the outside.

I forgot how much I love the E minor chord on the guitar. There’s something really nice about being able to just drone on the low string, bass sound droning as your own voice melds into the tone. The sound becomes almost rhythmic, starting to sound less like a pitch and more like a pitched percussion. Then, just when the note feels like the only sound that your guitar could make, you change chords.

The A minor chord that follows suddenly feels electric. The energy rises, and you barre¹¹ up to B minor. As you reach the peak of the line, the rhythmic low E drone comes back, and you’ve returned to E minor. All that to say, I really love the setting of The Angel Gabriel I found. It was originally in the key of A minor, but I transposed it down a fifth to E minor.

I’m more and more understanding what a visiting composer once told me. He said that every interval has a particular emotion attached to it. While I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, or even get to the point of specific keys having feelings on fixed pitch instruments like harp or piano, I’m starting to get there on guitar.

E minor, as mentioned, feels resonant and droning. The fact that only two notes are fretted, and both are fretted to octaves of notes that are already sounded probably helps a lot.

E major, by contrast, feels aggressive and intense. It’s the sound of beating drums, striving and preparing for a fight.

G major feels open. It reminds me of the open prairie as a lone voice sings about the stark beauty of the land.

C major is hopefully happy. It is the sound of a young protest singer, one who still believes in his country.

A minor is not melancholy, for all that the word almost fits. It is not quite bittersweet. It’s the ache of absence, the pain that comes only because of a joy that has been taken.

D major uplifts. It reminds the listener that there’s something they need to be moving towards.¹²

All this to say, I think that the music I write needs to start focusing on E minor for the more intense portions, because there’s an intensity to the low open E that I just cannot match with the other chords.

or left to detune, as it may be↩︎
I’m ignoring power chords which tend to be subsets of barre chords, and I know that Jazz and other traditions might have their own way of breaking it down. For the kind of music I make and the people I talk to, though, the categories are fairly valid.↩︎
wow look at that nice circle of fifths↩︎
I don’t think that it’s barreing, and spell check seems to agree with me↩︎
this is, of course, ignoring the fact that I know of at least two variations for C and G major that have different sounds, for all that they do not change anything about the explicit character of the chord. As an example, a variation of the G chord has the B string fretted to the third fret, turning it into a D. This means that the only third in the chord is in the upper A string, which means that a treble focused strum turns into a power chord.↩︎
I think that the battery might have died or that I somehow put it in wrong, will troubleshoot soon↩︎
I still haven’t given most of my songs names, but I think Ashes will be what I call it today. I’m sure that I’ve given it other names, and until I record and publish it, it will continue to get more names as needed↩︎
which a lot of people did comment on, which was kind of nice. It’s nice to be recognized and remembered↩︎
I love that master of ceremonies got initialized to m c got extended to emcee↩︎
an apparently less well known one, which is strange.↩︎
I hate that it’s spelled like this↩︎
why yes, the music I play does tend to have a single sharp in its key signature, how did you know?↩︎

Musings

I'm just copying my father

Home

On Why Versus How

Draft 5

Draft 4

Draft 3

Draft 2.5: metawriting to figure out how I feel

Draft 2

Draft 1

On Being Seen

Draft 1

Dungeons and Dragons Again

Draft 1

Reflections on Today’s Gospel

Draft 2

Draft 1

On Ratings

Draft 2

Draft 1

Flash Fiction Friday

Draft 1

Book Review of Fundamentals of the Faith

Draft 1

On Teaching Crochet

Draft 1

On Blogging

Draft 1

Open Mic

Draft 2

Draft 1