The State of Purpose

I need a recommendation. For a time, I've wanted to learn-- to come to understand-- U.S. history. Now we all know that a story is as much a part of the teller as it is of the subject. That one has to consider the source. So, instead of my grade-school textbook on American history, I thought I could go and just pick up A People's History, that it would fill in all the details and explain causes and movements. But Zinn's work apparently assumes that one has already learned U.S. history from somewhere and that we just need to re-learn it. He skims past topics like the Boston Tea Party quickly, without explaining what brought the event about or its context.

So the recommendation, then, is for a solid, thorough explanation of really any piece of history. U.S. history might be a logical place to start for me, but really and piece or bit would do just fine, if it's lucid and engaging. My paternal grandfather really keyed me into this interest years ago, when he would send family letters (by U.S. mail) describing the books he'd read, often on historical subjects. I realized, through those letters, that history-- despite what my public schooling did to dry it out-- was actually a deep and rich bed, out of which current and daily events have grown.

This all serves as background, really, to the engagement that I want to make with my immediate and future world, in a few specific ways. In one part, it stems from living in the mid-west, where the highly political water-cooler talk isn't so easy that I can just affirm and abide. Yet, my lack of background impairs my faculty for informed response.

In an altogether different regard, I want to understand the business and financial worlds well enough to answer various questions I pose to myself while planning for the next thirty odd years:

Would I be happy pursuing a PhD and subsequently working in research, or would an MBA be a rewarding career move? Will I have enough savings to retire, or will there even be such a thing in 35 years? What connection do I hold with my maternal homestead?

Answers to such questions require fairly well-informed thought and a fair amount of research. But it's alright to take a few years to answer then and well worth the time investment. I enjoy this part of growing up; it's what we do.

So please, share with me your reading lists. Let me know who awakens your intellect and grounds your discourse. Write me back into our community, for the arid plains are beginning to make me parch.

The Death of a Writer

Hearing on the radio today an interview with an author who is writing about David Foster Wallace's last, unfinished book and suicide reminded me of Spalding Grey. This comes late to the latter's death, but now works well for me. Are you available now?

There's a common sentiment that suicide is the most selfish of acts. Whether or not that holds, i always think of Grey's death in terms of his family (a wife, two boys, and a step-daughter). For some reason, his alleged suicide (his body was pulled from the East River) strikes me as most sad in light of the family of which he was part.

This post isn't about suicide, though. Rather, i thought smashingly of Grey and his monologues, so lament the loss of the artist. One could say something about the fire that burns so bright, but Grey's life wasn't exactly brief, so i'm not sure that holds.

Specifically, Grey was a storyteller, and spun his monologues with such craft that you forget you're listening to a man, sitting at a table, talk. You see instead the scenes he'd built up, just as good literature transports you past the medium and on into the message. Witness that you can rent Swimming to Cambodia or Monster in a Box-- that these are selling movies with repeat audiences.

But other forces were at work, as well. The dynamism of his monologues usually lofted into mania. His book Impossible Vacation painfully describes an individual struggling to exist. And it tells too of his family in detail.

So we have to look among ourselves. For i doubt there are many here who have not seen dementia, nor witnessed addiction, nor ever felt so feverishly elated as to be accused of unchecked exaltation. And we know that these conditions do not grow in a vacuum, that they have a persistent history. We grow up with them, around them, learning to abide and adapt.

I often think of my life and actions in terms of a trajectory, but there was no clear target at the outset here. Only that i miss Spalding Grey and had possibly forgotten to mention it. But i think i see from where this thread was borne now. Grey is gone. Our knowledge and memories of his influence weave together our own experiences. They bear a warp against the surface of our thoughts. Be well, at the falling of the light.