{"id":2122,"date":"2024-02-18T23:50:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T05:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2024-02-18T23:50:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T05:50:20","slug":"weeknote-for-2-18-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/2024\/02\/18\/weeknote-for-2-18-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeknote for 2\/18\/2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Housekeeping<\/h2>\n<p>\ud83d\ude10<\/p>\n<p><strong>For my spring housekeeping, I spent some time on catch-up cleaning and boxing up my accumulated clutter.<\/strong> My kitchen floor and bedroom look a lot nicer now. This week I\u2019ll continue sorting through the clutter and try to get to some invoicing and investing research.<\/p>\n<h2>Spirituality<\/h2>\n<p>\ud83e\udd14<\/p>\n<p><strong>I started working on my spirituality statement.<\/strong> It&#8217;s an exploration of my personal views and style that I\u2019m writing during Lent. So far I\u2019ve jotted some thoughts on my purpose for doing the project and my idea of its scope. The basic idea is that clarity would help me navigate the complexities of life and resist both distraction and pressure, both from outside and inside myself. I know I can\u2019t spell out everything I think in this area, so I\u2019m aiming to hit the highlights, enough to give me direction. This week I\u2019ll look at how my views developed.<\/p>\n<h2>Philosophy<\/h2>\n<p>\ud83e\udd13<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arthur Melzer\u2019s <em>Philosophy between the Lines<\/em> took me on a fascinating dive into the relationship between philosophy and society.<\/strong> The book argues that philosophers up to the modern era hid their real positions in roundabout writing, so I was expecting it to be an interesting side trip into an unusual form of cryptography. It was, but in the process he examined the rather profound reasons they felt the need to write esoterically and why we find this idea so hard to accept.<\/p>\n<p>Fundamentally it\u2019s because earlier philosophers thought of society and philosophy as being at odds so that they had to be protected from each other, and now we believe they ultimately benefit each other. Esoteric writing was also meant as a teaching device to prompt aspiring philosophers to work through the issues on their own. There was a fourth purpose that came into play once philosophy was seen as a benefit\u2014to nudge society gently in the philosopher\u2019s preferred direction. Melzer also includes an intriguing discussion of Leo Strauss\u2019s arguments against postmodernism (or historicism in his terminology), which Strauss held arose partly because the historicists failed to read earlier writings as esoteric.<\/p>\n<h2>Stormwater management<\/h2>\n<p>\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><strong>I took another walk at the local dam that\u2019s my personal symbol for stormwater management.<\/strong> It was one of the first locations I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/2021\/03\/19\/weeknote-for-3-14-2021\/\">visited<\/a> after deciding it was a subject I wanted to pay attention to. I was in the area again last week, so I stopped by.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" style=\"background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);\" data-instgrm-captioned=\"\" data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/C3hJOttuCWo\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\">\n<div style=\"padding: 16px;\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 19% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-top: 8px;\">\n<div style=\"color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;\">View this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 12.5% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;\">\n<div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 8px;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: auto;\">\n<div style=\"width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;\"><a style=\"color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/C3hJOttuCWo\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A post shared by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Housekeeping \ud83d\ude10 For my spring housekeeping, I spent some time on catch-up cleaning and boxing up my accumulated clutter. My kitchen floor and bedroom look a lot nicer now. This week I\u2019ll continue sorting through the clutter and try to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/2024\/02\/18\/weeknote-for-2-18-2024\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,6,22,208,167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housekeeping","category-philosophy","category-spirituality","category-stormwater-management","category-weeknotes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2123,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}