Saturday, July 30

            Accept the journey.

Friday, July 29

            Knowledge can create illusion.  Example:  I see the ground around me, therefore the earth must be flat.

            In a related way, our brain cannot picture an apple and an orange without one of them being to the other side of the other, we can only describe that impossible physical state where neither is to the right or left of the other.

            Language helps us think because it can transcend the physical world.  

That is why I always found language and writing so spiritual because it allows us to formulate ideas then share them.

Thursday, July 28

            It seems to me that there is more lying going on, more than ever.  To the point where people have almost come to expect that they will be lied to and then the process of discovery and apology kicks in.  I see this pattern a lot now with public figures.  It probably was triggered by Watergate then Monicagate, in terms of on the national scale.  Interpersonally, the speed of communication and social networking almost seems to encourage half-truths, omissions, misinformation and complete fabrication.  Someday, the only place to find truth may be in novels.

                                                  Wednesday, July 27

I recently came across two finds during my used book hunts.  Daniel J. Boorstin’s, The Discovers and The Creators, each were a dollar!  While paying for the second one, the cashier said she had been on a cruise with him and his wife when they were aboard lecturing on American history.  She got to know them pretty well as she was the Speaker Coordinator.  Boorstin has one of my favorite bios of which I am envious:  Harvard graduate with highest honors; Yale doctorate; Oxford Rhodes Scholar; admitted as a barrister-at-law in London and member of the Massachusetts bar; a visiting professor at the University of Rome; …wait for it, yes, Paris is next… the first incumbent of a chair in American history at the Sorbonne; and Librarian of Congress.

Tuesday, July 26

            I enjoyed more stories today from my daughter about her day at the ranch.  I am getting to know the horses by name as she describes  how:  Shade is being treated for cancer; Rod is being exercised as he was kept in a barn and so his strength needs to be built back up; Freckles is called Merry Legs because she looks like the horse of that name from the movie Black Beauty; Patch needed another bath today as he rolled in his barn immediately after just getting washed and covered himself in wood chips; Bailey is new and just arrived; and Patch is a little bit of a bully.  Also, today, the dentist came to check the horses’ teeth.

Monday, July 25

            Two forms of symbolic logic are:

“true-or-false”; and

“all-or-none” – classes of ideas(elements) that contain either all elements or none of the elements.

Sunday, July 24

            The 21^st day of 100 degree temperatures and reports are that around the city water pipes and sprinkler systems are leaking as the ground’s dryness causes buckling and breaking much as it is doing to roads where pot holes are developing as the ground under the asphalt dries and buckles the concrete.  We discovered a leak in our own sprinkler system on Friday.