Blogging with Jekyll

Over the past nearly 10 years I’ve tried numerous times to maintain a blog. I enjoy writing and figured it would be a good way not only to practice the skill, but to share my thoughts with others. I don’t really care whether anyone reads my work, to be honest; I just want to write.

The problem is that, while I don’t care so much if I’m read, I do want to be able to keep my files and refer back to them from time to time – something of a journal (which is what the blog was originally conceived to be). That means that I need the writing in form that is easily saved and retrieved. Another concern has been that I be able to write from essentially any computer, any where. I started, as most folks do, on Blogger, then moved to Wordpress, each time abandoning my work and the platform, as I moved to another. That’s not what I intended. Making the process more difficult is that the writing is stored in a database. This makes retrieval of the raw data difficult, particularly if you’ve forgotten the password, or the database is corrupt, etc. And, to be honest, those platforms are simply more complex than my needs. What I needed was a simple, easy to use platform that allowed me to maintain a file of my work.

Designing Your Life

I ‘attended’ a presentation by Story Musgrave, the astronaut, on “Designing your life” or some such similar topic. While I wasn’t overly impressed with his general rambling presentation style, I was very impressed with the message that threaded throughout his story. I took several keys away from the presentation.

The value of curiosity

The first takeaway was the importance of curiosity in achieving an effective life. From high school drop out, he went on to earn a BS in math and statistics, MBA in operations analysis and computer programming, BA in chemistry, MD, and MS in physiology and biophysics within an 8 year period. He would later earn an MA in literature. To me, the broad range of areas, as much as the time frame for these accomplishments, says a great deal. He explored the areas that interested him. He committed himself to those areas. Most students today would be counseled to choose a singular path and follow it. Yet, the life he built for himself was one based on the intersections of his interests. Each area of interest exposed him to ideas that he wanted to explore further and so he did.
By not limiting himself to a given field, he opened up new avenues for self expression and provided himself the skills to create new opportunities.

Some Thoughts on Philosophy

So, I’ll begin this treatise with a question: What is philosophy? And perhaps another, just to follow on that, why is philosophy important?

To take things in order, my simple answer to the question of what is philosophy is to say that it is, generally, the creed by which one lives one’s life. I think the dominance of big names in the field – Nietzsche, Hume, Watts Marx, and so many others – and the deep, convoluted and difficult writings that these big names have produced have left most people with the impression that philosophy requires deep, almost mystical thought on very esoteric subjects. And, from my readings, I think there’s sufficient evidence that this impression is not wholly inaccurate. But, the depths of thought that the writings of these great names reveal are, I believe, the exceptions rather than the rule of philosophy.

How Social Filters Impact an Educated Response

One of the hallmarks of the well-educated person is, I think, the ability and willingness to explore all sides of an issue before making a decision. Unfortunately, it seems that few people, even those who are, in fact, well-educated, truly take the time to explore an issue before taking a stance on it. And, to a large extent, I get it. It’s hard to do. It’s hard, not only because it takes time and effort, but because we are bombarded by so much information from so many different sources and on so many different topics that it is difficult to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. What is important? What should I be concerned with? What issues can I reasonably relegate to secondary or tertiary concern and on which should I focus my attention?

The First Thing Every College Should Do For Its Students

For some time now I’ve argued that colleges and universities have dropped the ball on one of the most important preparatory steps in attending college: Defining what a college education is all about.

Students often go to college without a clear conception of what they’re supposed to be getting from the experience.  They go because college has become the “thing you do” after high school.  Like their secondary education, they never really stop to think about why they’re going, or what the benefits are. More importantly, many students see college as simply an extension of their secondary education. That is, learning without an express purpose other than “I’ll need to know this someday.”