Hi, Guys!

Yesterday I received a broadcasted email from a cherished friend in Washington, DC. He writes for a generally distinguished audience. In his most recent “blog” he raised the matter of an annoying subject which for years has troubled me as well.

Tabula Rasa

According to our good friends at Wikipedia (the internet “Free Encyclopedia”), Tabula Rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental conduct and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. The term in Latin equates to the English “blank slate” (or more accurately, “erased slate”). In Western philosophy traces of the idea appear as early as the writings of Aristotle, though it went largely unnoticed for 1,000 years. Tabula Rasa is also featured in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. Freud depicted personality traits as being formed by family dynamics (see Oedipus complex, etc.). Freud's theories imply not only that humans lack free will, but also that genetic influences on human personality are minimal. In psychoanalysis, one is largely determined by one's upbringing.

Ashtrays and Non-Ashtrays

Like children many of us even as adults are in the habit of recalling what are often the most inconsequential (and sometimes less than flattering and inconvenient) details of life. It would for example appear to be no large compliment to my first philosophy professor at Glendon Hall that the only thing I recollect from a year of his instruction is him saying, “The world is divided into two things: ash trays and non-ashtrays”. I might add that my professor chain-smoked those preposterously long, slim cigarettes from which he never took more than two puffs before extinguishing it. To this day I marvel that ashtrays then abounded in the small classrooms at university.

Coffee, Anyone?

Today was a Saturday. In preparation for what was to follow, I began the day with several cups of freshly ground Columbian coffee. It was a measure taken to strengthen myself. Within the next twelve hours I drove the car almost five hundred kilometres in and out of the Laurentian mountains. Throughout that time I drank another cup of coffee over lunch, then afterwards two cups of espresso allongé while visiting with friends at their place. Small wonder, while not exactly bouncing off the walls, I am now the furthest from contemplating going to bed.

Au Revoir!

While I am among the first to acknowledge the extraordinary frequency of coincidence in life’s affairs, and the collateral admission that the future is completely unpredictable, unforeseeable and unknowable, there are nonetheless moments which represent significant and seemingly irreversible demarcations.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

The well-known and cautionary adage that “Beggars Can’t Be Choosers” no doubt has its foundation in fact though I take considerable pride – perhaps smugly so – in saying that I snap my fingers at its abstract truth or at least that I stand my ground to repel its particular application. I may be kidding myself, and I may live to regret my haughtiness in thinking that I am somehow above the universality of such popular maxims, but my reasons for doing so having nothing whatever to do with superiority.

Slow Going

As the economy continues to limp along, I find myself having less and less to do each day at the office. It even seems that the customary monthly bills have reduced to a trickle though I am sure that perfection is entirely illusory. When the time is long everything appears to slow to a crawl. With Easter weekend in the offing I have all but given up expecting anything whatever in the immediate future.