[MD] The Greeks?

[Matt Kundert]

Hey John,

> "The event of philosophy is the event of reshaping ourselves, not in some
> cosmetic sense, but in the sense that after we are done we
> are not who we were when we started."

That is the line I am most proud of in my entire oeuvre, and 
the line I always secretly hope people zero in on and take 
away.  (It shows my particular fondness for alliteration.)  
The line that comes in a close second is: "Who we are now 
in the present is partly because of the way we tell the story 
of our own lives to ourselves."  I've used it three times now 
in different pieces. (There's no planning in these things, but 
if you are going ask why it has a lyrical quality, I would look 
at the alliterative pairings, two Ps, two Ws, and finally two 
Os and Vs, parallel syllable groups "own lives" and "ourselves."  
Not perfect Os, but slanty enough.)

My sister's an amateur writer, and her and I are always 
fighting about style and form, and particularly how it 
inflects content.  I tell her that, often when I'm writing, I 
get to the point of making a joke, or making an outrageous 
claim, and it feels as if all of the writing that came 
beforehand, all of the careful analysis of Plato and 
explication of Greek culture, was just to reach this one 
line, which often is argumentatively superfluous.  As if 
scholarship were just the set-up for a punchline.  Or, as if 
I don't see the point of a series of periods unless I get to 
at some point draw that exclamatory vertical line above 
one of them.  My sister's theory, born out in minimalist 
poetry and whatnot, is more of the aphorist: just say the 
cool line, and stop fuckin' around with the crappy shit.  But 
I tell her that's not how all jokes work.  I wrote a theory 
about my writing once, about the function of the 
overindulgent, outrageous claim (self-indulgent bit of 
self-justifying megalomania as it is): 

http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2008/02/theory-of-rhetorical-overindulgence.html

> I disagree tho that you get called an elitist philosophologist every couple
> days.  Maybe in your memories...

When you've been around the MD for over a decade, the 
days start to run together.  Besides, paranoia sneeks in at 
a certain point and you can hear people thinking it, even 
when they ain't writing it explicitly.

> PS:  Glen Bradford?  I think I went to school with that guy...

Seriously?  You should look him up: http://home.comcast.net/~moq/

Matt

p.s.  Yes, I used "oeuvre" and did a stylistic analysis to 
bait somebody into calling me an elitist.  It's been 36 hours, 
and I'm really jonesin' here man...
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with Hotmail. 
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multicalendar&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_5