What do you do when you want to write but have nothing to say? A wiser person would perhaps write nothing, but I think it has become abundantly clear at this point that I am not a wiser person--at least not compared to some. I write this from my new apartment. I am moved in, unpacked, and it feels good. It's nice to have my own place again, nice to nest. I made a crack earlier today about how I am half cancer half leo; due to my birthday I am a cusp baby. This means that I always want to move, but always want to nest. I think this paradox describes me in spades. And people say astrology isn't true.

One thing did happen tonight; I had the realization that the same tactics I employ with my students and harp in my teaching--being able to explain the why or the theory behind one's thoughts is lacking in most aspects of life. Perhaps I can explain.

When one is teaching it is widely known that it is incredibly important that a teacher know why she teaches what she teaches. She needs to understand the theory behind her thoughts and actions. I also force this on my students by constantly asking them why. They hate me and I don't blame them for it, but it makes for better arguments, better writing, and (frankly) better thoughts. Tonight in a philosophical discussion about love--not even involving drunkenness or pot--I listened to people describe their ideas on love and realized that theory, if I can appropriate the word, is something lacking in most people's thoughts. This may sound highly egotistical of me, but I think it is a rarity for someone to be able to define an abstract thought or belief, without basing it entirely on example.

In "love" examples would be doing something that makes someone happy, engaging in an activity that offers a feeling of completeness or connectivity. But I wanted to ask (and didn't because I knew it would be way to teachery of me) why those activities offer such a good feeling and why the idea of being connected is important. How often in life do we use words to describe a feeling without really understanding why that word works or even what it means in other terms? I say true love should be unconditional and then I define unconditional by actions. But what do those actions symbolize? Why do they cause the feelings in me they do? These are the questions I think that are often left unexplored.

It seems people in general, and certainly me in particular, use language to approximate an experience but never push their own language, and by extension their thoughts, to a place where they can name wholly what they really feel, felt, or think. Now, as I say this I admit that I don't think many things can ever be named wholly--how could you ever nail down exactly how your mother makes you feel? But often we stop at a cliché or a Hallmark card instead of figuring out what it is about that cliché or card that so captures what we are going for. Is any of this making sense? It's been a very long week and I may very well be rambling.

But how often do we know why we do what we do? How often are we aware of how our actions appear to others? How often do we think about what we believe and attempt to ascertain if it really is what we want to believe or just comfortable? I am not saying that people everywhere are living in ignorance (though I think a great many are) but rather that so many of us, myself included, don't like to think about things, least of all ourselves and our actions, to deeply. That isn't so much a revelation as a statement of well known truth. My point in restating it is simply to illustrate why I'm thinking on this discussion about love. It brings me back to a truth I already knew, many people don't actually like new, challenging knowledge, in a new way. And by arriving at this from a different angle I have a new understanding of it. I am, as Nietzsche would say making "unheard of connections and metaphors."

None of any that really matters of course. No one can give someone else truth I think. You can provide illumination, create the environment through words or pictures to allow for revelation, but I don't think it happens from someone else. I think it always has to happen within. Someone else might just provoke it a bit. And how fatalistic is that? But not sad.

Now I am rambling so I bid you adieu. I apologize to all for my blather and my arrogance, but most of all for subjecting you to a philosophical discussion about love. Though, I wasn't actually talking about love at all. But knowing that such a discussion took place is both sad and stereotypical. Sometimes I'm such a hippie grad student I amaze even myself.