The Human Form: All I Need by David Avery

Ayn Rand on Human Perfection

"Discard that unlimited license to evil which consists of claiming that man is imperfect. By what standard do you damn him when you claim it? Accept the fact that in the realm of morality nothing less than perfection will do. But perfection is not to be gauged by mystic commandments to practice the impossible, and your moral stature is not to be gauged by matters not open to your choice. Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality - not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute."
- John Galt's radio address, from Atlas Shrugged, p. 1059

Audiophilia

So, a favorite music list has been created on my part, over at Rate Your Music. It includes stuff listened to during this month. This is merely the beginning. Hopefully, it grows.

List Here.

Ralph Vaughn Williams

The Lark Ascending is easily one of my favorite pieces of all time. Despite being classically trained in piano, my appreciation for Vaughn Williams has just begun. 

Reflections: Voltaire's Letters on England

In a previous posting, I quoted Voltaire's account of market based allocation of goods, which is said to overcome barriers of prejudice. Now, Hayek used an expression "the extended order" to designate the way markets were oriented towards bringing strangers, as it were, together for mutual benefit, where each party doesn't have any other incentive to "get to know" the other. The common denominator here is the right to property, or property rights. Each party is inclined to create desirable goods and services in context of the preferences of the other party involved in a given trade. In other words, private property creates incentives, which also have far ranging implications for the preservation of resources which are often described as having "intrinsic value," but actually pan out to be highly dependent on property owner preferred value acquired by means of market allocation.

The normative recommendation for such "values" are found in context of said party's use of the value as consisting in a broader end goal, i.e., efficacious living, or living well, which entails a recognition of the property rights of other parties, whereas human flourishing is dependent on exclusive use of those values in accordance with rational decision making. Thus, property rights are rendered as not only beneficial to social interaction and aggregate benefits, but more fundamentally required for individual success. 

Spiritual Fuel: Sergey Marshennikov

Russian painter, Sergey Marshennikov captures the female form with awe-inspiring detail and grace. 

Tasteful ;-)

1001 Things Every Graduate Should Know

You know what I hate about long lists? Well, being a human being an all, I can only focus on about 3 or so things at a time.

You know what I love about long lists? After reading a few interesting points, I can't help but continue through.

Problem is, reading the book 1001 Things Every Graduate Should Know was a very self-contained experience. The knowledge found in the book is hard to keep in mind after you've put the book down. There are some gems in there but how many of those gems did I actually integrate into my pre-existing body of knowledge as it relates to surviving tertiary education and transitioning into the adult world? Who knows.

Some questions raised after flipping through included: How did the author arrive at this certain point? Is this going in chronological order? Is there a method, or way of thinking, that I should employ to come to similar conclusions or is it really just kind of "I wish I did this when I was in college" kind of deal?

It may help to note that in parenthesis there are the words: "How to Succeed in the Adult World"

As one who is interested in education and all, things like this stand out to me. After all, education is supposedly a process in which the "cognitive powers" necessary for adult life are developed.

Now, the challenge I have set for myself is to figure out whether I go through the 1001 things and "abstract" away the key points and create a mental unit to refer throughout my college life.

Table of Contents

The table of contents is a good way to start. It has several bullet points indicating the big ideas. However, this list can be thought of as to big to handle similarly to how I would think of the 1001. The trick here is to look for certain keywords that keep coming back, signifying a noteworthy concept with several concrete, um, suggestions, if you will.

For instance: Everything on the list begins with "You Need to Know..."

Who is "you" exactly? I believe that would be important. The title says "every graduate" but clearly we're talking about a person who is ignorant of the many need-to-know facts about post-secondary education life.

Other words that come up frequently:

Survival - If you need to know how to survive a certain aspect of your new life, this means that the every day maneuverings  of that aspect require a context of knowledge which is not simply available to those who haven't been through it. Simply put - "Take it from us, we've been there and done that & it was challenging" The main areas of difficulty we're talking about here are "campus life" and "college classes".

Before I go on to build on the "campus life" and "college classes", we have to know why this sacred knowledge is so important that you simply MUST know it. What are you trying to avoid.

Moving - Assuming you do live on campus, we know that it took some effort to move into your new living situation. Given the kind of effort there, it may be safe to presume that such a person is also there to succeed. Now what is the antithesis of success at college? Well naturally, moving back home. In 1001 Things, the author painstaking addresses all the issues that could cause one to want to move back home (This also includes moving to another school). He says "You Need to Hold On to Your Ethics So You Don't Sell Out and Have to Move Home". Clearly from the context, the "ethics" being talked about here is not as all  encompassing as ethics as I would think of it. To me, this translates into "You Need to do what you should do or else you won't and have to move home". Not very helpful, eh? Well really, that point is best summed up as integrity being important to your success at college. Purposefully trying to reach accomplishments entails not being susceptible to screw-ups, but we're not accomplishing things only because we're trying to avoid screwing up. In other words, if you have your end goal in mind, a lot of stuff becomes non-issue e.g. knowing the difference between a loser community college and one that propels you to a four year school, knowing that cheating isn't a formula for long term success, knowing that physical needs have to be met to keep the spiritual fuel burning (food, sleep, exercise, sex, etc.), and so on. The pay offs here that tie into the bigger goals turn out to be things like thoughtful use of money (and perhaps job experience), time management (and time for entertainment plus finishing college in 4 years to get into the job market "on time"), practical knowledge in organization, use of space, etc. All in all, your  keeps you from having to move back home aka dropout.

College Classes - Before moving to college, there's a bunch of preliminary information that you get about your school which is basically data for making inferences about what academic life will be like there. The first thing we have to consider is that there isn't a dichotomy between what we can call the "practical" and the "achievement of happiness". The two main ideas floating around out there seems to be that A. College is a time for finding your self and exploring and B. You're either better off not going to college or you should just go and pick and major that will be marketable and so forth. Is anyone really opposed the accumulation of knowledge? Knowledge being interconnected and all, I see not distinction between A & B. Isn't it likely that the person who can "reconcile" the differences between a STEM major and perhaps Art History is the one who will be highly productive/innovative in their years beyond college? Uniting seemingly unrelated courses is a task, but so is each course in and of itself. This means that to succeed in each, mastery of things like networking, efficient note taking, slashing costs on course materials, understanding the professor, taking on harder tasks first, doing the optional course-work, learning to interpret results and figuring it back into your strategy etc. will be important.

Campus Life - Upon arrival on campus, most getting-to-know-you activities in the dorms will likely be related to questions about past experiences, specifically related to sexual encounters and illegal substances. It seems that most people will go out of their way to talk about things other than course content. Campus life will nonetheless, be a lot of about social interaction. This is important to filling your goals, given the benefits of comparing notes, getting to know the professor, and having people to grab lunch with (remember those physical needs we talked about?). Just as your Plan of Study should be integrated, campus activities should play a role your bigger picture. Being active means you need insurance, being sexual active means you need rubbers (insurance) and so on... What really works out is that conflicts don't arise between things that are your interests when they all connect well to you, the individual. Example: spending extra on dinner after attending that talk with a classmate from HIST123.

To sum things up, I thinking the biggest advice here is that each step of the way it's best to really think things through, constantly making connections and prioritizing.

One Does Not Simply...

With regard to choosing a major, I've come to the realization that: One does not simply go to George Mason University without taking a course Economics. 

If you're looking for a reason why, let me give you a few: Tyler Cowen, Peter Boettke, Walter E. Williams, Brian Caplan, and the list goes on. 

...What about the Mercatus Center, or the Institute for Humane Studies?

If you haven't guessed it, there is strong orientation towards liberty (and individual rights) on the Economics side of things here (if the ECON course on Austrian Economics is any indication). 

For those sympathetic to the cause for freedom, it should mean something that the largest college in the state of Virginia makes the list (with about only 20 other institutions) for places where one might take a formal course on, say, Austrian Economics. 

Voltaire's Letters on England

“Go into the London Stock Exchange—a more respectable place than many a court—and you will see representatives from all nations gathered together for the utility of men. Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker. On leaving these peaceful assemblies some go to the Synagogue and others for a drink, this one goes to be baptized in a great bath in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that one has his son’s foreskin cut and has some Hebrew words he doesn’t understand mumbled over the child, others go to their church and await the inspiration of God with their hats on, and everybody is happy. If there were just one religion in England, despotism would threaten; if there were two religions, they would cut each other’s throats; but there are thirty religions, and they live together peacefully and happily.” (Voltaire,Letters on England, Letter 6)

“In France anyone who is a Marquis who wants to be, and whoever arrives in Paris with money to spend an a name ending in –ac or –ille can say: ‘a man like me, a man of my standing’, and loftily despises a businessman, and the business man so often hears people speak disparagingly of his profession that he is foolish enough to blush. Yet I wonder which is the more useful to a nation, a well-powdered nobleman who knows exactly at what moment the King gets up and goes to bed, and who gives himself grand airs while playing the part of a slave in some Minister’s antechamber, or a business man who enriches his country, issues orders from his office to Surat or Cairo, and contributes to the well-being of the world.” (Voltaire,Letters on England, Letter 10)

Coming to Montserrat

This is a song I produced earlier this year. The name is inspired by the sample (my voice), Montserrat (the British Overseas Territory) and a little by my appreciation of the technical ability of painter Montserrat Gudiol (mostly her self-portraits).

Montserrat Gudiol (Autorretrato)