January 4, 2023

~5:10am

Reading on Emerson's "self-reliance" and/versus social engagement… 

Consciously keeping advanced personal development inside of social engagement*? While certainly Bildung (Eckhardt, Goethe) sub specie Dante is more important to one's self, and lasting, than engagement in crowded politics.

*serious societal issues and problems, not polite chatter.

5:15 am

Mutually shared, unspoken suffering maintained for years, plus maternal love and relation, kept me more "polite" in and to my "hometown" than I otherwise might c/would have been. 

This starting and maintaining – as years, eventually decades, of unhometown, intellectual development increased – a deep divide between my self and society.

5:25am

Most I know are "continent" rather than "island". Including in their thoughts, emotions, opinions… Few men (or women) are an island.

1:45pm

Competing rhetorics of American society

8:02pm

Observing and respect for each other, the opening prayer in the House of Representatives: how much of reality must be slept through in order to believe in such prayer now.