"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]

Monday, November 1, 2021

The Gordian Knot - "Whither Brute Force or Deft Touch?"

The Gordian Knot -

"Whither Brute Force or Deft Touch?"

by R.E. Slater

Whither brute force

warrants savage act,

or deft touch may

thwart one's ends,

is a question for the ages

asked time and time again.

Some, the wiser, may fall upon

task with slashing violence,

rather than pull at stubborn stay and twine

where another, perhaps less wise,

wrest at lashings losing time

to wind and tide, day with night.

Whither the means,

or whither the ends,

which directs fated hand

or mind its errant task,

the act reveals all to all beholding

the actor deigning to lead.

R.E. Slater

November 1, 2021

rev. Nov 2, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

* * * * * * * * *

The Gordian Knot

Aug 9, 2021

Shall I Use the Sword to Solve the Gordian Knot?

link to passage

The problem of untying the Gordian knot resisted all attempted solutions until the year 333 B.C., when Alexander the Great - not known for his lack of ambition when it came to ruling Asia - cut through it with a sword.

'Cheat! ' you might cry.

And although you might have been unwise to have pointed it out in Alexander's presence, his method did seem to go against the spirit of the problem.

Surely, the challenge was to solve the puzzle solely by manipulating the knot, not by cutting it.

Yes, life itself is the fiction. And knowing self is that - and cutting life with sword of self, knowledge - is like Alexander's way of solving puzzle.

But being able to solve by patience, perseverance and constant effort to make impossible to possible is way of imagination and fiction!

- Anon

link here

The Alexandrian Solution

https://andreaskluth.org/2010/05/24/the-alexandrian-solution/

A lot of people have a very famous story… wrong.

The story is that of the Gordian Knot and precisely how Alexander the Great loosened it. Most people imagine Alexander slashing the knot with his sword, as pictured above. But he did not.

In the nuance of how he really untied the knot lies hidden a worldview:

the supremacy of simplicity and elegance over brute force and complexity.

The true “Alexandrian Solution” was, for example, what Albert Einstein was looking for in his search for a Grand Unified Theory — a formula that was simple enough (!) to explain all of physics.

I’ll give you the background and the nuance of the story in a moment, but first another fist bump to Thomas for reminding us to make the association.

We are, remember, talking about complexity:

The Gordian Knot is the archetypal metaphor for mind-numbing, reason-defying complexity;

Alexander’s triumph over the knot is the archetypal metaphor for triumphing over complexity.

Now read on…

I) Background

a) Phrygia

The Gordian Knot was, as the name implies, a knot in a city called Gordium. It was in Phrygia, an ancient kingdom in Anatolia (today’s Turkey).

The Phrygians lived near (and may have been related to) those other Anatolians of antiquity: the Trojans and the Hittites. They were Indo-European but not quite “Greek”. Their mythical kings were named either Gorgias or Midas (and one of the later Midases is the one who had “the touch” that turned everything into gold). Later, they became part of Lydia, the kingdom of Croesus. And then part of the Persian Empire. And then Alexander showed up.

b) The knot

Legend had it that the very first king, named Gorgias, was a farmer who was minding his own business and riding his ox cart. The Phrygians had no leader at that time and consulted an oracle. The oracle told them that a man riding an ox cart would become their king. Moments later, Gorgias parked his cart in the town square. In the right place at the right time.

So fortuitous was this event and Gorgias’ reign that his son, named Midas, dedicated the ox cart. He did so by tying the cart — presumably by the yoke sticking out from it — to a post.

And he made the knot special. How, we do not know. But Plutarch in his Life of Alexander tells us that it was tied

with cords made of the rind of the cornel-tree … the ends of which were secretly twisted round and folded up within it.

It was a very complicated knot, in other words, and seemed to have no ends by which to untie it.

Lots of people did try to untie it, because the oracle made a second prophesy. As Plutarch said,

Whosoever should untie [the knot], for him was reserved the empire of the world.

II) Alexander, 333 BCE

Alexander, aged 23 and rather ahead of me at that age, arrived in (Persian) Phrygia in 333 BCE. The knot was still there, un-untied.

Alexander had already subdued or co-opted the Greeks, and had already crossed the Hellespont. But he had not yet become divine or conquered Egypt and Persia. All that was to come in the ten remaining years of his short life. And it began with the knot, since he knew the oracle’s prophesy.

Here he his, his sword drawn, approaching the knot:

Did he slash?

No, says Plutarch (ibid,. Vol. II, p. 152, Dryden translation):

Most authors tell the story that Alexander finding himself unable to untie the knot, … cut it asunder with his sword. But … it was easy for him to undo it, by only pulling the pin out of the pole, to which the yoke was tied, and afterwards drawing off the yoke itself from below.

III) Interpretation

I leave it to the engineering wizards among you to re-create the knot as it might have been. But what we seem to have here is a complex pattern that was nonetheless held together by only one thing: the beam.

It was, Einstein might say, like quantum physics and gravity: intimidatingly complex and yet almost certainly reducible to one simple reality.

Alexander, being Great, understood this. He saw through the complexity to the simple elegance of its solution and pulled the peg.

This is how I understand “the Alexandrian Solution.” I intend to look for it in all of my pursuits.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Children's Hour

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photographed
by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of the "Fireside Poets," wrote lyrical poems about history, mythology, and legend that were popular and widely translated, making him the most famous American of his day.


Eastman Johnson, Christmas Time

Print of Thomas Buchanan Read's portrait of Longfellow's
three daughters, Alice, Edith and Anne Allegra

* * * * * * *

Wikipedia - The poem describes the poet's idyllic family life with his own three daughters, Alice, Edith, and Anne Allegra:[1] "grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair." As the darkness begins to fall, the narrator of the poem (Longfellow himself) is sitting in his study and hears his daughters in the room above. He describes them as an approaching army about to enter through a "sudden rush" and a "sudden raid" via unguarded doors. Climbing into his arms, the girls "devour" their father with kisses, who in turn promises to keep them forever in his heart.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

Fredrick Morgan, Which do you love best?

Fredrick Morgan, SeeSaw

* * * * * * *

The Children’s Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

https://poemanalysis.com/henry-wadsworth-longfellow/the-childrens-hour/

by Andrew Walker, Andrew

If you’ve ever tried to convey a sarcastic remark through a written medium, you probably already know how difficult it can be to convey tone through text. For poets, this can be a very difficult mechanic to employ, but a very powerful one at the same time — not because poets are sarcastic people, but because of how useful it can be to play with connotations and denotations and take advantage of a reader’s predispositions. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow proves himself, again and again, to be very adept at using tone to enhance the messages within his poem, and The Children’s Hour is an excellent example of his use of the tool to convey the idea of his titular phenomenon.

The Children’s Hour Analysis

Between the dark and the daylight,

When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,

That is known as the Children’s Hour.

–

I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.

The Children’s Hour is written very lyrically, using the same rhythm and rhyming structure from beginning to end, without any kind of emphatic break or pause. The rhyme and flow helps the poem to pick up an easygoing kind of atmosphere — poems just sound nicer when they can essentially be sung. The first verse is also crucial in establishing atmosphere, and this seems to be its only read purpose. The grammatical structure of the verse is what is most interesting, specifically that there is no subject, and the entire verse is written in passive voice. It talks about a time and talks about a name, but gives no story or purpose to either; whose occupations are paused? Who calls this the Children’s Hour? Whose children are they? None of this is established, which makes the information presented sound just a little cryptic, and a lot like fact. It’s meant to be intriguing and disarming, and largely succeeds.

The second verse, on the other hand, has a narrator, who describes the early events of the Children’s Hour for the reader. The meaning of the verse is straightforward enough — the speaker can hear light footsteps and voices from people leaving the room above. Longfellow’s word choice is interesting though — he describes the “patter” and the “soft and sweet” voices, words typical of describing children, and he also describes their room as a “chamber,” which is more typical of a castle hall or dungeon than a nursery. The word is completely unneeded from a structural standpoint — “room” would have fit just as easily, if not more, since it would have made the line the same number of syllables as the first line of the previous verse. “Chamber” holds conflicting connotation with the rest of the verse, and this makes it what is likely a very intentional choice by the author.

From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.

–

A whisper, and then a silence:

Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together

To take me by surprise.

The second and third verses describe the children arriving to the speaker’s study, and they follow a similar structure in tone to the verses before them. Allegra is laughing, Edith is golden, and Alice is grave, and that last adjective is a truly odd one to find in the bunch. The children’s eyes are merry, yet they are plotting. What is interesting here is that these changes in description, these words that don’t belong, do not detract from the cheerful atmosphere; rather, the reader tries to imagine the words has having other meanings. It makes more sense to think that Alice is simply taking the plan very seriously than it does to imagine one of these children as being cold and serious. This is a triumph of The Children’s Hour’s tonal developments so early in the work.*

A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall!

–

They climb up into my turret

O’er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

They seem to be everywhere.

At this point in the poem, it’s fairly clear that the speaker’s children are the subjects of the work, so when Longfellow continues to describe their embrace as a fortress raid, the idea becomes endearing, rather than threatening. The tone of the work is influencing the reader’s perceived meaning of each word — so here, he uses many more words that might otherwise be considered dark additions to a story, such as “rush,” “raid,” “unguarded,” “wall,” “turret,” “escape,” and “surround.” There are a lot of them! But in this context, it’s more cute than threatening, and it seems that he may be describing events as they take place in the children’s minds, rather than the speaker’s own. It makes sense to think of young kids as imagining that they are invading a castle, and that the study chair is an outpost, with their parent as the object of a daring raid. In this context, the poem feels even more fun than previously.

They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

–

Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,

Because you have scaled the wall,

Such an old moustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!

After the children reach the study chair, the speaker begins to imagine themselves as a part of the children’s story. The reference to the Bishop of Bingen is somewhat obscure — in popular medieval legend, he was a cruel and unfair leader who’s tower was invaded by rats as punishment for a famine he did little to avoid or help his subjects through. The speaker, however, feels more confident than the Bishop, and warns his children that reaching the tower was the easy part and that there is one guard they cannot get past, namely their own father (judging from the self-described “old moustache”). He places himself within the story and calls them “banditti,” a group of outlaws befitting of their narrative.

I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

In the round-tower of my heart.

–

And there will I keep you forever,

Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

And moulder in dust away!

Tonally, The Children’s Hour is much benefitted when the father of the children embraces their narrative, and the story in the final four verses becomes about embracing that story and making it a part of the poem itself. Of course, because this is the Children’s Hour, the father will not allow his children to leave the “fortress,” returning their affection and promising to love them forever, still using their own story as his means of doing so — the “round-tower of my heart” is a somewhat literal metaphor, but it works here. The image of the tower crumbling to dust is a sad image to end off the poem, because it more than likely symbolizes the death of the father, who is saying that not a day will go by in his life that he will not love his children. It is a very sweet adaptation of the love a father has for his children, which is almost certainly the inspiration of the poem. Alice, Edith, and Anne Allegra Longfellow are the name of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s first three children, a fact which makes the playful and childish narrative of The Children’s Hour much, much sweeter to contemplate.

* * * * * * *

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

https://poets.org/poet/henry-wadsworth-longfellow

1807–1882

read poems by this poet

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine—then still part of Massachusetts—on February 27, 1807, the second son in a family of eight children. His mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, was the daughter of a Revolutionary War hero. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a prominent Portland lawyer and later a member of Congress.

After graduating from Bowdoin College, Longfellow studied modern languages in Europe for three years, then returned to Bowdoin to teach them. In 1831 he married Mary Storer Potter of Portland, a former classmate, and soon published his first book, a description of his travels called Outre Mer ("Overseas"). But in November 1835, during a second trip to Europe, Longfellow's life was shaken when his wife died during a miscarriage. The young teacher spent a grief-stricken year in Germany and Switzerland.

Longfellow took a position at Harvard in 1836. Three years later, at the age of thirty-two, he published his first collection of poems, Voices of the Night, followed in 1841 by Ballads and Other Poems. Many of these poems ("A Psalm of Life," for example) showed people triumphing over adversity, and in a struggling young nation that theme was inspiring. Both books were very popular, but Longfellow's growing duties as a professor left him little time to write more. In addition, Frances Appleton, a young woman from Boston, had refused his proposal of marriage.

Frances finally accepted his proposal the following spring, ushering in the happiest eighteen years of Longfellow's life. The couple had six children, five of whom lived to adulthood, and the marriage gave him new confidence. In 1847, he published Evangeline, a book-length poem about what would now be called "ethnic cleansing." The poem takes place as the British drive the French from Nova Scotia, and two lovers are parted, only to find each other years later when the man is about to die.

In 1854, Longfellow decided to quit teaching to devote all his time to poetry. He published Hiawatha, a long poem about Native American life, and The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems. Both books were immensely successful, but Longfellow was now preoccupied with national events. With the country moving toward civil war, he wrote "Paul Revere's Ride," a call for courage in the coming conflict.

A few months after the war began in 1861, Frances Longfellow was sealing an envelope with wax when her dress caught fire. Despite her husband's desperate attempts to save her, she died the next day. Profoundly saddened, Longfellow published nothing for the next two years. He found comfort in his family and in reading Dante’s Divine Comedy. (Later, he produced its first American translation.) Tales of a Wayside Inn, largely written before his wife's death, was published in 1863.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, the poet was fifty-eight. His most important work was finished, but his fame kept growing. In London alone, twenty-four different companies were publishing his work. His poems were popular throughout the English-speaking world, and they were widely translated, making him the most famous American of his day. His admirers included Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, and Charles Baudelaire.

From 1866 to 1880, Longfellow published seven more books of poetry, and his seventy-fifth birthday in 1882 was celebrated across the country. But his health was failing, and he died the following month, on March 24. When Walt Whitman heard of the poet's death, he wrote that, while Longfellow's work "brings nothing offensive or new, does not deal hard blows," he was the sort of bard most needed in a materialistic age: "He comes as the poet of melancholy, courtesy, deference—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more and in more valuable directions, for America."

* * * * * * *

More References

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-wadsworth-longfellow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

https://poets.org/poet/henry-wadsworth-longfellow#poet__works

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-wadsworth-longfellow#tab-poems

Monday, October 18, 2021

Parenting & Robert Louis Stevenson's Collection of Poems

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

- RLS

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

- RLS

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

- RLS

Quotes & Sayings by Robert Louis Steveson

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.

There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.

An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.

A friend is a gift you give yourself.

The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

The saints are the sinners who keep on trying.

Every one lives by selling something, whatever be his right to it.

* * * * * * * *

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/child-psychologist-explains-why-authoritative-parenting-is-the-best-style-for-raising-smart-confident-kids.html

A NOTE TO THE READER FROM A RELIGIOUS DAD WHO RAISED CHILDREN:

I would rather use the terms of an "educating, instructive, or guiding" parent rather than the word authoritative parent. The former words speak to caring, nurturing, helping, involvement, other-centeredness, sacrifice, giving, and so on. The latter term I feel is often confused with self-centeredness, control, and other poorer connotations, especially in religious circles.

Good parenting is just plain hard work even as teaching, pastoring, leading, or directing an organisation can be. Serving is nothing more than self-giving for the benefit of others. Its the coolest trait in humanity and often the most needed trait everywhere in healthy, others-centered societies. - re slater

RAISING SUCCESSFUL KIDS

Here’s what makes ‘authoritative parents’ different from the rest—and why psychologists say it’s the best parenting style

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/child-psychologist-explains-why-authoritative-parenting-is-the-best-style-for-raising-smart-confident-kids.html

Francyne Zeltser, Contributor - @DOCTORZELTSER

Published Tue, Oct 5 2021

We all want to raise intelligent, confident and successful kids. But where to begin? And what’s the best parenting style to go with?

Parenting styles fall under four main categories. It might be that you use one or more of these different styles at different times, depending on the situation and context.

Research tells us that authoritative parenting is ranked highly in a number of ways: Academic, social-emotional and behavioral. Similar to authoritarian parents, authoritative parents expect a lot from their children — but they expect even more from their own behavior.

What is authoritative parenting?

Authoritative parents are supportive and often in tune with their children’s needs. They guide their kids through open and honest discussions to teach values and reasoning.

Like authoritarian parents, they set limits and enforce standards. But unlike authoritarian parents, they’re much more nurturing.

Some common traits of authoritative parents:

Responsive to their child’s emotional needs, while having high standards

Communicate frequently and take into consideration their child’s thoughts, feelings and opinions

Allow natural consequences to occur, but use those opportunities to help their child reflect and learn

Foster independence and reasoning

Highly involved in their child’s progress and growth

Why experts agree authoritative parenting is the most effective style

Studies have found that authoritative parents are more likely to raise confident kids who achieve academic success, have better social skills and are more capable at problem-solving.

Instead of always coming to their kid’s rescue, which is more typical among permissive parents, authoritative parents allow their kids to make mistakes. This offers kids the opportunity to learn while also letting them know that their parents will be there to support them.

Authoritative parenting is especially helpful when dealing with conflict, because the way we learn to deal with conflict at a young age plays a big role in how we handle our losses or how resilient we are in our adult lives.

With permissive parents, solutions to conflicts are generally up to the child. The child “wins” and the parent “loses.” I’ve seen this approach lead to kids becoming more self-centered and less able to self-regulate.

Of course, there are times when a punishment, like taking a time out, is necessary. But the problem with constant punishment is that it doesn’t actually teach your kid anything helpful. In most cases, it teaches them that the person with the most power wins, fair or not.

Let’s say your 10-year-old son begs not to go to soccer practice: “I don’t want to because I don’t think I’m good at it.”

In response,

A permissive parent might say, “It’s up to you.”

A neglectful parent might say, “Whatever you want ... it’s your life.”

An authoritarian parent might say, “You have to. I don’t want to hear another word from you.”

An authoritative parent might say, “I understand that you don’t want to go. But sometimes, fighting the urge to avoid doing something hard is how you get better!”

While authoritative parents do set limits and expect their kids to behave responsibly, they don’t just demand blind obedience. They communicate and reason with the child, which can help inspire cooperation and teach kids the reason behind the rules.

Authoritative parenting doesn’t guarantee success

While experts give authoritative parenting the most praise, it’s important to note that using just one method does not always guarantee positive outcomes.

Parenting isn’t an exact science. In many ways, it’s more like an art. As a child psychologist and mother, my advice is to be loving and understanding — but to also create structure and boundaries.

Don’t simply focus on punishment. Be supportive and really listen to your child. Ask them questions and try to understand things from their point of view. Allow them into the decision-making process so that they can grow and learn things on their own.

There’s a difference between parenting styles and parenting practices. A parenting style is the emotional climate in which you raise your child, and a parenting practice is a specific action that parents employ in their parenting.

In short, behave as the good human you want them to be.

Francyne Zeltser is a child psychologist, adjunct professor and mother of two. She promotes a supportive, problem-solving approach where her patients learn adaptive strategies to manage challenges and work toward achieving both short-term and long-term goals. Her work has been featured in NYMetroParents.com and Parents.com.