tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196651674832836865.post4065754578010766021..comments2023-10-20T06:31:29.919-05:00Comments on The Logic of Long Distance: The DepressivesJeff Edmondshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11840746835757479590noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196651674832836865.post-41795024087783280672015-08-26T19:50:23.003-05:002015-08-26T19:50:23.003-05:00Thanks for your insights, as always. I always saw...Thanks for your insights, as always. I always saw my academic heroes as friends, in a way, similar to what you describe here. You make a wonderful argument for the value of humanities - I may borrow it, as someone with humanities degrees and a career revolving around history, who always feels compelled to stand up for these studies. Sending healing thoughts to you.Lauren Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196651674832836865.post-30582370366301967292015-08-26T09:46:19.856-05:002015-08-26T09:46:19.856-05:00Hi Jeff! I agree with Joann--keep writing even whi...Hi Jeff! I agree with Joann--keep writing even while not running. As you feel about philosophy, I feel about literature. I am re-reading East of Eden, having not read it since I was 16, and I am amazed at how a timeless work can speak to a person on different levels at all stages of life. Also, like you, I'm more skeptical about some aspects (the virgin/saint Mary/Eve falsehood when looking at women in particular with this book), but it still has a lot to teach me.<br /><br />As for depression, I think a lot of runners have a touch of it (including me, though I'm by no means clinical). As Mumford & Sons says, "There is no way out of your only life/So run on, run on."Terzahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10617301871875902162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196651674832836865.post-18617310275149724192015-08-26T09:42:44.402-05:002015-08-26T09:42:44.402-05:00Not exactly a quote but more like a chapter in a b...Not exactly a quote but more like a chapter in a book, this section from Shattuck's book struck with me as true: Literature, as one among the arts, acquaints us with a special and intensified repertory of feelings and events and possibilities. Later, when we ourselves encounter an event similar to one of them, we may have a counterpart already at hand, forgotten, but available. And the movement of our mind is to say, 'Here it is.' For we have virtually experienced it already (...) Literature, then, like all the arts, plays a formative or preparatory role in training our sensibilities. In a limited way it supplies the first beat of a duple rhythm of existence. It offers not true life, but the potentiality of true life if we go on to complete that rhythm. The Search and War and Peace do not represent the wasted effort of authors who can offer us no more than skillful diversion (...) The great books affect the economy of life for many individuals by allowing them to achieve personal experience sooner, more directly, and with less groping. This sense, this secret, is what allows certain people to live life at all times as an adventure...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17305452730359341397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1196651674832836865.post-83951484471792423252015-08-26T09:14:39.457-05:002015-08-26T09:14:39.457-05:00Thank you for the insights Jeff. It always gives m...Thank you for the insights Jeff. It always gives me pleasure to read your writings. Keep them coming even if they aren't about running! You have reminded me of something that Roger Shattuck said about books and reading as a younger and older person. I'll try to find the quote later. But he said something about reading as a young person sort of adds to our life experiences and provides a map of what is ahead while reading as an older person helps one to look back and read one's own life into the books and understand where we have been. Or something like that. Anyway, thanks again!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17305452730359341397noreply@blogger.com