Practicum 3: Family Dinners

I bit off of Andrew’s practicum a while ago for mine this week. It seemed like a good one for me to do because it rolls several of my values into one thing. Most obvious of those values is family, but I also find my values of taking time and quality in family dinners. Spending time with family over food is an important routine to make, and unfortunately we haven’t prioritized it for a long time. I hope to make it a more frequent occurrence beyond this week, though.

Overall, the practicum worked very well. My parents and I (and occasionally a few other members of the extended family) would actually sit at a table without piles of junk on it, with actual table settings, and it was nice. Taking the time to make sure that happened improved the quality of the meals, since there was planning and more effort involved. I also felt like it was a good thing to finalize the day, a routine to get grounded and unwind, and I went to bed happier. Even if there wasn’t much talking, or if most of it was between my parents, it was still nice to simply sit in their presence without any distractions, and hear what’s up with them. I guess it’s kind of like what checkout is to PSCS.

However, there were two nights where it didn’t work out perfectly. The first was Monday, when I have to leave at 6, about the time my mom gets home, and get back at 9, when my mom starts thinking about going to bed (she gets up at 5 to get to work). The other time was Friday, which was the showcase. Different scheduling things like that, which all of us have, makes it not completely sustainable. Even so, it’s something I get a lot out of, and it’s worth making a habit out of.

Text Study 3: Leaves of Grass

My third text study was a poem from a collection by Walt Whitman called Leaves of Grass. It was first published in 1855, with just twelve poems in it, though throughout the rest of his life Whitman tinkered with and expanded it (the copy I have, the last edition he made, is known as “the death-bed edition” and has about 700 pages of poetry in it). The poem I chose is the first one from the original 1855 version of the book, titled “Song of Myself.” It’s not really one poem, but is made up of a bunch of smaller ones that go together. I didn’t find relevance to my beliefs in all of them, but even so I read all 52.

The first line of the whole thing is “I celebrate myself and sing myself”. Many of the following lines are about self-celebration, almost to the point of arrogance at times. Even so, it’s something I really liked about this text. Whitman expresses satisfaction and contentment with things the way they are, and with himself the way he is. Self-improvement and ambition aren’t things he seems to devote much thought to. Rather, he accepts and appreciates what is, enjoys the present, and lets the world take care of itself.

I like this idea very much, to a certain extent. What is generally thought of as success and accomplishment is, to me, super over-valued. People are always working towards the next best thing, the bigger house, the bigger paycheck, the big accomplishment, wide recognition, whatever. I would much rather hang out on the low rungs of the ladder and be happy doing what I do, than be constantly driven upward by blind ambition. Not that I think people should only reach for the low branches. But I do believe there is such a thing as enough, and that living in obscurity is completely fine, as long you’re happy. In fact, I think that many of the most important, seemingly insignificant things are extremely significant in their obscurity. On the other side of it, I also don’t think it’s acceptable to just float around and be a bum. Some of the people that drive me up the wall are the kinds who won’t even try, and then say, “this is how I am, accept me!” So I guess there’s a happy medium between blind ambition and slackerdom where contentment lies.

Here are some of my favorite tidbits, if any one cares.

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
…………………………………..
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
…………………………..
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.
…………………………..
…do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else,
And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me…
…………………………
I resist anything better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)
…………………………..
I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is…
…I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.