So I was reading Elphaba and Byrne today, for some reason both struck me as being
all existentialist (in an interesting way, rather than the regrettable "I'm deeper
and more angsty than you" way you so often see) though I doubt either writer would
agree with that assessment. At any rate, it got me thinking that my life feels so
flurried these days that I rarely stop to do that sort of pondering. Then I
realized that no matter how much time and energy I had, I wouldn't be
existentialist because my mind just doesn't work that way. I think I'm a throwback
to older ways of thought; the Jefferson / Adams correspondence is in my to-buy
cart at Amazon, and for some time I've had a sneaking suspicion that I'd probably
like William James (though brother Henry is a bit slow-moving for me), but Sartre?
Probably never. Ditto Nietzsche (though at least I can almost spell him -- I only
missed one letter on my initial try).
If I ever have the time, I'll
think about that. It won't be in the next week or so, though.
At
that, in most ways I understand how my mind works better than I understand how my
body works. I don't know whether that's related to the fact that my mind in fact
works better than my body does. (Not strictly true: the body is stellar in terms
of health, just not so great at performance). What I mean by that is that I would
have no compunctions about taking classes at a top university, but would never be
/ have been able to be on any of their sports teams. Even after all my hours on
the water, I would be able to get to a higher level in trivia competitions, if
they had such an infrastructure, than I ever will at rowing races. (None of which
is to say that my mind isn't also considerably muddled most of the time.) This
reflection, of how I still really don't understand my body in many ways, is
brought on because I have gained about 3-4 pounds since the end of May and my
jeans are uncomfortably tight, and I have no idea why. I don't know if I've been
training less hard because of the heat, eating more, or what. It doesn't feel like
I've done anything different. I tend to gain and lose that much weight
periodically (No, not on a monthly schedule. I do understand that cycle.) for no
discernible reason; I hope it never gets more extreme, because if I suddenly
gained lots of weight I'd have no idea how to get rid of it.
Oh-oh.
Looking at what I've written, I see that it could be paraphrased as "mind is
obsolete, body is weak and undisciplined". That doesn't leave much. Perhaps I need
to redo my textual analysis here.