Rhetoric

potius convincere quam conviciari / ad bellum purificandum

better to prove than to reprove / towards the purification of war

but it's more complicated than that.

Thoughts on Print and Digital Reading

So my sister recently posted on facebook Pam Allyn's Huffington Post article, “Why I’ve ‘Gone Back’ to Print Books,” and asked for others’ responses to it. I started writing up what I thought, and it went a little bit too long for the medium of a facebook comment, so I’ve decided to put it here.

I find the article intriguing in many ways.

1) I find it fascinating that in Allyn's intro to why she likes paper better than digital she completely flips on its head the current cultural perception that technology is for the 1st world, privileged elite and out-dated modes of communication are for the less-fortunate and under-privileged. It almost has the feel of one of those nostalgic reminiscences for the technology of the past, much in the mode of the currently hip interest in vinyl records and decades-old photography technologies. The speed with which tablet technology has introduced itself and evolved seems to have sped up the process of longing for the good ol' days. The Miniver Cheevey syndrome, if you will.

2) None of her reasons for preferring books to e-readers have anything to do with the content of the book, but rather the experience of reading viewed from a much broader perspective. It's not just the words, but the overall aesthetics of touch, and the sense of beauty that comes from the jacket. You might say that she only prefers the aesthetics of paper because that’s what she was raised with, and that someone raised reading electronically won’t feel the same way about paper books. I think I can agree with that. Those of us who say that reading print media is superior (I definitely include myself here) aren't so much saying that it is inherently superior, but rather that reading digitally is an entirely different experience from our own cherished experiences reading, and we’re loathe to see something we loved so much be cast away. Thus we cling to it all the more tightly. This is basically a reiteration of Marshall McLuhan’s nearly 50 year old assertion that the medium through we communicate is as important as the message communicated.

3) I’m intrigued by the sense of ownership implied in her point saying that she likes to turn the book over and over in her hands. She seems to be saying that when you have a book you feel a much stronger sense of ownership over the content than you do with an electronic device. With an electronic device that sense of ownership is lessened because, for example, you don't rightly know where page 187 is stored within the device. You can call the page up at will, but if the battery dies, page 187 is lost to you interminably. You aren't in control. With a book, there’s nothing that can remove that control from you except for those external forces that we as a race have been dealing with for centuries, i.e. fire, flood, marauding bands of thieves, older sisters, etc., and for which we as a society have evolved a sense of critical awareness and suspicion. E-readers, and technology as a whole, are forcing us as a society to conceptualize new definitions of ownership. But again, these are only issues that we can begin to deal with as we climb far enough up to social ladder that we aren’t worried about where our next meal is coming from.

4) The last point that I find intriguing is Pam Allyn’s own final point, and that is the social aspect of reading. I find this one most intriguing, because when we think of reading, we think of being alone, completely isolated from the world and enveloped in the reading. I think of times as a child when I was supposed to be cleaning out my closet and instead was sitting in my closet reading, hiding from Mom who was sure to come find me and get after me for not cleaning.

Photo courtesy of  bookshelfporn.com (don't worry, it's not a sketchy site.)

Every step I heard coming down the hall quickened my heart rate and made me throw my book, pick up a shirt and pretend that I’d been cleaning all along. More often than not Mom wasn't checking up on me, and when she did I'm sure she wasn't fooled, but the point is I was doing all of this completely alone. Yet Allyn asserts that she misses the sociality of it reading. She misses being able to see what others are reading and either strike up conversations or perhaps pass silent judgments on people because of their reading selections. It's almost as if reading gives you membership to a community of readers, and seeing others reading is a way of identifying members of that community. When we get rid of books, we get rid of our way of discerning out our own kind. With electronic devices people might be surfing the internet, or playing Angry Birds, or any number of other non-reading activities, so there's no way to tell where or who your community members are. I could go off from here and talk about how this idea might be related to animalistic puffery and modified versions of instinctual mating rituals, but I’ll go ahead and not do that right now.

4.2) This idea of reading as social activity leads me to another interesting idea concerning reading, though it’s not as related to the digital vs paper debate. When you read something intriguing or interesting or illuminating, a common response is to feel the desire to share that with someone else. The book club effect. We want to see what others’ thoughts are on the subject. We want to tease out the ideas introduced in the book. This happened most strikingly for me after I finished reading Stargirl for the first time. That book really shook me up, and I wanted to talk to someone about it. Unfortunately I finished reading it around 3 am, so there was no one to talk to. It drove me crazy needing to talk to someone about it, so I sent an email to Katy Challis, who had suggested I read Stargirl in the first place, dumping out all my thoughts in a place where I knew they’d have an audience. I couldn’t bear to not make an effort to create a social experience out of the inherently individualistic act of reading. As a matter of fact, that’s what sparked this whole blog post in the first place. My sister read something interesting about the digital vs print reading debate, posted it on facebook and elicited others’ thoughts. She wanted a community discussion, and here I've joined the community. In fact, technology, namely social media, has exacerbated this impulse to share what we read. So in that sense, digital reading has enhanced the social nature of reading by allowing us contact with an ever-widening community. The debate then becomes the value of networked and impersonal social interaction vs unmediated and in-person social interaction. But I’ve read too many poorly written freshman research papers on this subject to feel any desire to jump down that rabbit hole.

All told, I’m still firmly entrenched in my devotion to the printed word, but I find this whole debate fascinating. That said, I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts on the subject. (See what I did there?)

World Series Problems

I have a problem on my hands here. First of all, I love the World Series. It's probably my 3rd favorite annual sporting event that doesn't involve BYU sports. The first two being, in order, March Madness and the NBA Finals. It's also my 5th favorite overall sporting event. That list consists of:

1. Summer Olympics
2. March Madness
3. World Cup
4. NBA Finals
5. World Series

My earliest memories of sports involve watching the World Series in the early 90s. It's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. So what do you do when you hate both teams playing?

My favorite teams are the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees. So you can see my problem when the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox are in the Fall Classic. I want to have someone to cheer for, because that makes watching any sporting event more enjoyable. Even years when the Yankees aren't in the World Series I can usually pick a team to get behind without much trouble. (I only mention the Yankees because unless some major changes are made in Chicago, it's looking like it'll be another 105 years before the Cubbies go to the playoffs, let alone the World Series. Hopefully Back to the Future II was right and I'll just have to wait till 2015, but it's not looking good.) If it were just the Cardinals or the Red Sox the issue would be resolved easily; I could just root for the other team. But no, they're both in.

So what do I do? Do I just root against whoever is at bat? But if I do that I'm indirectly rooting for whoever is pitching/playing defense, and I just don't feel good about that. Is there some way we could get both teams to lose? I mean, I don't want to involve catastrophe or mayhem or anything that might result in loss of life and limb here. I can't just root for "good baseball" because then that means that both of these teams that I do not like are doing well, and that just doesn't sit well with me.

I'll probably just cheer National League and be done with it. It doesn't solve the problem, but it dissociates me from directly cheering for the red birds.

Oh well, at least the Braves aren't in it.

Exploring Indiana

So one of my favorite things to do these days is to explore the Indiana countryside on Sunday afternoons and evenings. It's kind of a modified and less awesome version of "Snake Murder," but since Jordan isn't here in Indiana to come exploring with me it's the best I can do. (Quick clarification, "Snake Murder" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with murdering snakes. But it also doesn't not necessarily have anything to do with murdering snakes. I just want to make sure that's clear.) This Indiana version of snake murder isn't nearly as awesome as the Utah version, mostly because Jordan isn't here, but I get by.

When I go off exploring, I never head out with a destination in mind, because I want the trip to develop organically. Basically I get in the car, turn on some Christmas music, pick a direction, and drive.

...

Let me add a quick side note on Christmas music. I'm not going to argue with you about when it's acceptable to listen to it. I listen to it all year round. Deal with it. You're not going to persuade me that I'm doing it wrong or that I'm ruining Christmas's specialness or that I need to change my listening habits. Any such arguments would fail before they even got off the ground. Because they're wrong. And because I do what I want. And what I want pretty much always involves listening to Christmas music.

Speaking of possibly unpopular opinions about Christmas music, let me say that Celine Dion's "O Holy Night" is the best version there is. Hands down. That's not to say that other versions aren't lovely and wonderful in their own right, but hers is the best. And it's not even close.

...

Anyway, as I drive, if I see anything intriguing or beautiful or eye-catching, I stop and explore. Simple as that. Sometimes I just stay on the roadway and snap a couple pictures. Sometimes I throw fallen walnuts at their tree trunks, imagining myself to be a pitcher in the majors. (I have little control, so clearly I could never be a major league pitcher. But when a somewhat rotted-out walnut hits a tree trunk and explodes you can't help but feel awesome about yourself.) Sometimes I end up chasing white tail deer through hidden meadows. There's just no way to predict what might happen.

Once I'm good and lost amongst the trees and the corn and I don't really know where I am in relation to anything else (with no mountains around to use to orient myself I get turned around fairly easily), or once the sun goes down and it's difficult to discern the usual tell-tale markers of adventure, I tell my GPS to take me home (country roads), and I head back to Lafayette.

It's been a great way to get to know the area a little bit, and it's come to the irrevocable conclusion that Indiana is beautiful, though my students disagreed with me when I tried to express that idea to them.

With that, here are a few pictures that I've snapped during my adventures over the past month or so. I put a few pictures up on the facebooks, so none of those ones are here. Also, I'm no great shakes at digital post-processing of photos, so these pictures are presented to you in their all-natural, but less-than-stellar glory. (explanatory...ramblings are found under each picture.)

First off, there's this picture of the Wabash River. This isn't actually a picture from my excursions through the countryside, sorry. I include the picture because I cross over a bridge spanning this river every day going to and from school. Probably 2/3 of the time (maybe more) I walk the route, and I take particular joy in walking across this bridge. There's just something so peaceful and serene about walking across a river, even when there are cars traveling at moderately high speeds just feet from your path. Just last week as I was walking to school I saw a beaver swimming through the shallows on the east bank of the river. I stopped and watched him until he swam under the bridge, and I was a bit late to class as a result, but it made me really, inexplicably happy. This picture was taken as I was walking back to my apartment, so I'm facing southeast. The buildings in the distance are downtown Lafayette.

When I saw this tree house I absolutely had to stop and investigate. Can't you just imagine being a little kid and spending an entire summer in and around this tree house and pond? Heck, I'd settle for being an adult and doing the same thing. There's a certain magic that this scene (or at least the idea of this scene) evokes for me; I just wish the tree house and pond were off in the woods somewhere instead of next to the road. I mean, just imagine setting off into the woods for your secret hiding place where you pass the long summer days having mad adventures with your friends, real and/or imagined. Perfect.

I love the rocky foundation of the barn in this picture. I don't know why, I just do. Also, the silo reminded me of the time this last summer when Smed and I went on a 17 mile bike ride to Utah Lake, around the airport access road, and back on little girl bikes. About 1/3 of the way through the ride we saw an old, unused grain silo that we decided we had to climb. So we crossed an empty field, jumped a fence and climbed up. Once we got to the top we laid ourselves down on some seemingly precarious boards, and looked up at the stars. 

This barn and silo picture also shows something that I've found I love about several of the farms around this area. I love how the cultivated land goes right up to the tree line. It's like the wild and untamed natural world is fighting to reclaim the land the farmers have tamed and put it to work. For some reason now I'm envisioning squirrels and bushes and trees with knives and pitchforks going to battle with ax-wielding farmers (which are very different than Axe-wielding farmers)....(ok, so I know it's not kosher to put two parenthetical remarks in a row, but I feel a need to explain the last one. I was going to link to an AXE Body Spray commercial there where it says, "Axe-wielding farmers," but I hate those commercials, so I didn't. But I feel too clever for my pop culture-infused play on words to not leave it in. So to make up for it, here's a commercial of a Panda in a grocery store instead.)

So these last few pictures were taken at Ross Hills Park. First though I need to give a quick back story on how I got to Ross Hills Park. In my explorations around the area, I've found that one of my favorite things in the world is to drive or ride my bike down roads that feature trees growing along both sides so that their branches create a kind of tunnel over the road. I just can't get enough. I don't have any pictures of said streets, because so far none that I've tried to take capture just how wonderful they are. This is probably because I'm usually driving when I take them. I'll keep trying, but no promises. Anyway, one Sunday afternoon I was driving along a particularly satisfying tree-lined road when I passed a sign that read, "Pottawatomie Trail of Death," with an arrow pointing to a road on the left. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of sign you can't just pass by without investigating further. Turning, as the sign indicated, I ended up at Ross Hills Park. Funny enough, I never did find out anything about the Pottawatomie Death Trail while at the park. (I've since done some extensive research, though.) Death trail nowhere to be seen, I started wandering around, and in doing so I found this weirdly ominous archway framing a pathway that lead into the woods:

Naturally I had to follow the path, though with some trepidation. I mean, somewhere near here was the Pottawatomie Death Trail. While I didn't know the specifics, I assumed it was something similar to the Trail of Tears, which I had learned about, and imagining such a horrible event occurring nearby was more than enough to cast something of a melancholy over the whole scene. Melancholy and a tich of apprehension. The kind of apprehension you feel in the beginning scenes of a horror movie. (I don't actually watch horror movies, but I imagine that if I did, there would be some apprehension felt during the beginning scenes.) Plus, history aside, we're talking about something called a "Death Trail." Not exactly the most inviting name. Was this the death trail? Probably not, but there was no way of knowing. That said, I swallowed my fear and strode on into the woods. And the trail led me to this:

and this:

and this:

eventually opening out into this meadow that was completely hidden from the view of the rest of the park:

(Sorry this photo's a bit grainy. It was the only way I could figure to get both the sky and ground to show color.)

When I came out of the trees into the meadow I scared three white tail deer that had been munching some grass. Naturally I was as quiet as I could be and tried to take a picture:

Before long (and by that I mean almost immediately) the deer spooked, as they are wont to do, and took off. As they ran, I instinctively took off after them. I'm not sure why I did it, but it like I was a little kid again chasing starlings through the field behind my house. If I'd stopped to think through what I was doing I would have realized that I had no hope of catching them. Nevertheless, it felt right to chase them all the same.

I explored the meadow extensively, and found this old dead tree with this awesome vine climbing it:

It was like the vine had decided to make this trunk its home so as to change its colors and drop its leaves as though a surrogate for the old dead tree that clearly longed for the autumns of yore.

Not long after finding and exploring the meadow, the sun went down and I had to leave the park. But on my way back home I saw this:

and then later still this:

Which brought me back to the conclusion that sweet mother, Indiana is beautiful.

On Gravity

For the past week or so my friends and follows and various other social media connections have been telling me and everyone they know that they should go seen the new flick Gravity. and to see it in 3D. IMAX if possible. They say it's incredible. That the attention to detail is remarkable. That it captures the sound of space (silence) perfectly. That it's a visual spectacle. That it has 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, for crying out loud. And so on, rhapsodizing till the cows come home.

...

quick sidebar relating to cows, and then I'll get back to Gravity. The other day I went for a drive in the country and drove past a field full of cattle. They were a group of fine, normal-looking kine, except for one. The one was weirdly fat. Like, it wasn't a cow that you would look at and say, "Whoa that's a big cow. He'll be some good eats some day," but rather a cow that you would look at and say, "Wait, that's not a cow shape. Why is it so wide? and squatty?" I'm probably exaggerating the weird of this cow because it wasn't one of those things where you stop the car and take a picture because THERE'S THIS WEIRD LOOKING COW!, but it was just weird enough that as I drove past I thought to myself, "Huh, something isn't quite right there. That cow is a weird shape," and I've been thinking about it off and on ever since.

Well, that was a propos of nothing. Back to Gravity.

Like I said, apparently it's the film to see if you want to be hip to the jive when it comes to movies these days. I won't be seeing it.

When I was a little kid I loved space. It fascinated me. It filled my little soul with wonder. I would go outside at night, lie in the grass, look up into the sky and soak it all in. It was just so enormous. So beautifully mysterious. I would look at the moon and struggle to fathom how incredible it was that man had walked on it. I mean the moon! To this day there is little that soothes my soul quite as much as looking up in perfect silence at the stars. That said, my relationship with space was complicated. There was a sinister dark side to my fascination with space, and it came in the form of a recurring nightmare.

In the nightmare I'm in space. That's it. The details of how I got there or what I'm doing there are never clear, except for an overwhelming anxiety connected with being there. I'm usually floating motionless in space without a suit of any kind. Naturally, such a condition should mean that I'm dead, except I'm not. I'm alive. Alive, but with one condition. I can't move. At all. If I move, I die. I can't breathe. I can't twitch in the slightest. Even feeling my heart beat is cause for alarm because the tremor of my chest might be too much movement. Which only makes my heart beat all the harder. I am just the slightest movement away from having the breath sucked out of my lungs and ceasing to exist entirely. The fear and panic rise until I can't take it. But I can't do anything about it so I just stay still while waves of hysteria wash over me. And in the throes of that horror, I wake up. But the horror would be so real that even awake I couldn't move. My heart would pound, but I'd lie on the bed as motionless as I possibly could. I couldn't cry out for consolation, or get out of bed and go tell my parents I'd had a bad dream, because if I move, I die. All the muscles in my body would be clenched to keep them from moving involuntarily. And I would just lie in bed basking in the panic of my nightmare until my pinky twitched, or until I blinked. And when the air wasn't ripped violently from my chest and I didn't die when I breathed, I would start to relax and usually tremble slightly as I fell back asleep.

It's been a long time since I've had that nightmare, but to this day when I think about it, my heart quickens a little and I feel very uneasy. To tell you the truth, I hadn't even thought about that nightmare for years, until earlier this summer when I was at the movies, and one of the previews was for Gravity. That preview brought back all my old fears from my nightmare. In fact, watching the preview was like watching the prequel I'd never seen, or at least remembered, to my nightmare. It was awful. I'm not going to post the trailer here or link to it, because I really don't want to see it again. And if that's the reaction I had to just the trailer, how much worse would it be to actually see the movie? I don't know. And I don't wanna.

I think at some level we probably all have that primal fear of space, which is why this movie was made in the first place. Without such a fear, the whole premise would fall flat. But that's not a fear that I want to indulge in for fear of rekindling it in any of its old glory, if you can call it that. No, I'd rather just sit back at home and watch Danny Kaye's antics in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty again. No nightmares there.

The Art Institute of Chicago

For as long as I can remember I've always wanted to go to Chicago. It was the one big city that was always alluring to me. More than New York or London or anywhere else, first on my list was Chicago. I don't really know why, honestly. Maybe it's because I've always been a Cubs fan. Then again I've always been a Yankees fan too, so that can't be it. Anyway, along with my dream of going to Chicago has been a desire to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. I think that desire was largely born of the 3 years I spent working as a museum security guard. Anyway, a week and a half ago, that dream was realized. Along with Priya and Amelia (two friends in my cohort here at Purdue), I finally visited the Art Institute.

The only problem was I had a cold.

Let's take a step back here for a minute and talk about rhetoric. Specifically, I want to talk about Kenneth Burke. More specifically, I want to talk about motion versus action. (Stay with me here, it won't take long.)

Now I don't necessarily want to get into the nitty gritty theoretical details here, but I think a brief discussion of motion and action will be helpful. According to Burke, the big difference between motion and action is that motion exists outside the realm of symbolicity, where action is symbolic. Let me explain. For Burke, motion is what happens in the world whether or not anyone is around to witness or define it. But, as self-conscious beings (us) step into the world of motion and make sense of it – as we attach symbolic meaning to motion through language and other symbol systems – and as we begin to work with various motions to consciously choose to do things, we operate in the realm of action. In Burke’s own words:

There can be motion without action (as the sea can go on thrashing about whether or not there are animals that have a word for it). There can be no action without motion (as we animals could not have words for anything except for the motions of our nervous systems and the vibrations that carry our words from one of us to another through the air or that make words visible on the page). (“(Nonsymbolic) Motion/ (Symbolic) Action” 814)

Last winter I wrote and presented a conference paper in which I discussed some of these ideas. (If you want to discuss this idea with me further let me know. It fascinates me.) Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about these ideas. About how much the uncontrollable elements of our lives (motion) affect the choices we make as well as things that we often think of as being fundamental to our idiosyncratic senses of self - our general positive or negative outlook on life or our tastes in music, books and art.

And that brings us back around to my experience at the museum.

Like I said, I've wanted to go to the Art Institute of Chicago for a long time. And ever since I moved out here to Indiana I've been positively itching to get up there. I don't really know how to adequately describe being there, except to say that it was one of the more inspiring afternoons of my life. There just aren't words to describe the joy of finally seeing some of my favorite artists and works of art that I've long only admired from a distance. At one point I distinctly thought that if I could live out my days there I would die happy.

That said, as the afternoon wore on, I could feel myself getting sicker and sicker. I felt a fever coming on, and my back and feet and legs were starting to ache something fierce. But I couldn't just couldn't allow myself to leave. There was so much I wanted to see, so much I wanted to take in. Finally it got to be fairly unbearable, so I left the museum, went to the nearest CVS and bought some cold medicine and ibuprofen. Fully drugged up, I headed back to the museum for a few more minutes until it closed.

As the museum closed and Amelia, Priya, Kristen (Priya's friend who joined us in Chicago), and I were getting ready to go eat some fantastic pizza, we started talking about which works were our favorites. I was quieter than usual, partially from being sick and partially from the awe of what I'd just experienced. I didn't quite know how to express myself. Even now I don't quite know how to express my experience that day. The more I thought about it, the more I was surprised at the works that I kept coming back to as the ones that I'd found impacted me most. 

These are they, listed in the order in which I saw them:

Nocturne: Blue and Gold--Southampton Water, James Whistler

Houses of Parliament, London, Claude Monet

Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), Vasily Kandinsky

Untitled (Painting), Mark Rothko

Greyed Rainbow, Jackson Pollock

All images courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago website

I wasn't necessarily surprised that I liked these works, but what I was surprised that in the end these were the ones that had had the strongest impression on me. As I've taken about a week to process it all and think about why these were the most impressive to me, I've decided that it comes back to motion.

As I walked the museum, my body was experiencing the motion of dealing with a nasty cold. If I hadn't been at the museum, that nonsymbolic cold-fighting-body motion would have likely have found its symbolic action in the form of me laying on my bed listening to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. But I wasn't in bed; I was in an art museum. So art became the chosen symbol system for action.

I don't think I'm unique when I say this, but I am most impacted by art when it reflects life or casts light on what, to me, it means to live. (When I say "art" I mean that in the broadest sense, including literature, music, dance, and even natural landscapes.) I want to feel something and be changed as a result of my interaction with art. And I've realized that that is exactly what happened with each of these works.

As I contemplated so much of the history of art over the space of a couple hours, these were the paintings that made me feel. It was as though each of these painters had looked into the future and had been granted special insight into my soul at the moment I would see their work for the first time. And their skill was such that they had depicted the state my soul perfectly on their canvases. Even now as I look at these (frankly rather uninspiring) reproductions that I've copied and pasted into this post, I am taken back to exactly how I felt that Saturday afternoon. Words inadequately express what each of them makes me feel, even now.

Of the bunch, the most powerful for me was and is Pollock's "Greyed Rainbow." Somehow, despite the crowds that had been ever-present no matter where I went all afternoon long, when I got to "Greyed Rainbow" I was the only person there. As I stood in front of it, I was completely taken in. The painting seemed to engulf my entire field of view, and I felt like I was an integral part of it's chaotic movement. I felt myself ever-so-slightly swaying back and forth, and my vision seemed to focus and unfocus over and over as the painting washed over me. It was utterly mesmerizing. I don't know that I've ever before felt like I was so intimately connected to a piece of art. By this point in the day my body was achy all over and my head was hot and throbbing from what I knew was a fever. In that state this piece of art was the perfect symbolic representation (action) of my uncontrollable, nonsymbolic, bodily motion. That was one of the last pieces I saw before deciding I needed to get some medicine in me.

The motion of my body dealing with a cold changed my entire experience that day, and I'm glad for it. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but it left an indelible impact on the way I will forever view these works. There are definitely worse ways to spend a cold-riddled afternoon.



  

Always Do Right

When I was 14 years old, about a month or so after I received my Eagle Scout award, I was with Mom over at Grandma and Grandpa Anderson's house. I don't remember why we were there, but as Mom and I were getting ready to leave, Grandpa told us to wait a minute and he went downstairs to his study. When he came back up he held a book of his entitled Of One Heart: The Glory of the City of Enoch and a letter he had written for me on his typewriter. He proceeded to give them to me in his quiet, unassuming way. When I was a kid (and frankly to this day to some degree) I was pretty shy and often felt kind of invisible, but not in a bad way. I knew my family loved and cared about me; I just figured people never really took much notice of me because I was quiet. So when Grandpa made an effort to single me out and give me something, I was both surprised and really touched. I stumbled through the best "thankyou" I could muster (I really was an especially awkward 14 year old), and we were on our way.

The letter congratulated me on earning my Eagle, and went on to give me some advice about life. At the time I thought it was great advice that would help me survive my teenage years, and it was. I successfully navigated those treacherous teenage waters with what I think was modest success. But now that I'm on the downhill side of my 20s (first water and now hills? how's that for mixing your metaphors?), I've come to realize that the wisdom he imparted in his letter continues to have a very real impact on my life. I don't want to get into the details of his advice except to share one line that has always stood out to me:

"Always do right, no matter what the cost."

I think about that line a lot. Sometimes it gets stuck in my head and I repeat it to myself over and over again. (In fact it gets stuck in there almost as often as the chorus of King of Pain, except this is more uplifting.)

Today was one of those days when I have been playing it over in my mind a lot. So while procrastinating doing my reading for my composition theory class, I was fiddling around with Photoshop, and I made this:

I've never really done work with typography before, so it's not that great. Mostly I was just playing around with colors and fonts and seeing if I could adjust the kerning and whatnot.

Anyway, as I've been thinking about why I like this piece of advice so much, I've decided that, on top of it being applicable to nearly every moment of every day of my life, I like it because it pretty much sums up the kind of man Grandpa was. As his obituary says, "As a role model for his wife and children [and I'd add grandchildren], he was unsurpassed. His quiet, humble demeanor and unmitigated love was felt by all throughout his life. He was truly a man without guile." 

Grandpa Anderson is one of my heroes, and I try to pattern my life after his in many ways. The book and letter that he gave to me have become some of my most treasured possessions. I've read the book a couple times, and I've read and reread his letter many, many times. Grandpa passed away nearly 11 years ago now, and reading his letter - his encouragement to always live my life right - never fails inspire me and make me happy.