insider

just back at my desk after a meeting up at wh. the wind is rattling the old sash window through which i can see clouds moving across the sky. despite the odd moment of enjoyment with my spreadsheets (very odd, i should say), i find myself thinking more and more about writing - about how necessary it is for communication and the expression of things we cannot live without - beauty, love, goodness, forgiveness. i've also been thinking about our (innate?) love of stories... where does it come from? why do we enjoy hearing and telling stories so much? i wonder whether it comes from a need to feel connected to others, or the need to escape. it seems clear, though, that fiction (as well as the re-telling of actual events) is important to us. it's a comforting thought, faced - as i am - with yet another spreadsheet to play with. tonight, on the bus back to my car, i will read a few more pages of brick lane and immerse myself in yet another narrative.

an aside: i like the fact that monica ali started writing just after she'd had her first child; perhaps it proves that the acquisition of children doesn't necessary mean the loss of sanity.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 10:59 AM

no words since july 7th, which is simply because there are events - and responses - for which words are inadequate. sometimes i would rather not try. still, with a little water under the bridge, i will say that mama and i were in london exactly a week after thursday 7/7, and it was very moving to be part of the two minute silence that was held right across the city, and elsewhere in the UK too. i cannot remember the last time the streets of london were so quiet at midday, and it was amazing to see the pavements full of people standly silently, cars pulling over and even buses at a standstill. there was something comforting in the quiet visual nature of the solidarity expressed.

at the evening service at HTB last night, i was struck by this quote from John Wesley:

'Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.'

It occurred to me that that is the way to live.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 1:05 PM

today's big news: london has won the closely contested bid for the 2012 olympics and in true british style we are happiest about the fact that we beat the french. i notice that the bbc couldn't help but mention the weather in paris: apparently it started to rain after the decision was announced. for once, i shan't complain about the rain...

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 1:12 PM

i love the french. particularly for their dedication to the entente cordiale, which - at present - is on slightly shaky ground, not just because of the london/paris bids to host the next olympics. take yesterday's big news, for example: despite what must be a busy schedule, chirac remains committed to the longstanding french tradition of saying rude things about british food. clearly he hasn't been to the US of late... despite my own love of the occasional side order of freedom fries, i think this may be proof that once again, our friends on the other side of the water are taking things too far.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 9:47 AM

clearly, at 2:54pm on a monday afternoon, i should have more to do than this. but i don't. so here it is: my take on the book i finished on the train home last night: on bulls**t. on the whole i found it very well written (perhaps that shouldn't be surprising, given that the author hails from Princeton) and convincing in its analysis of the topic in hand. i liked his point that bulls**t poses more of a threat to the truth than do lies. however, the conclusion left me dissatisfied. i can't decide whether his final lines were flippant or serious. He ends with this:

'Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial--notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bulls**t'.

now, i do agree that it is no small thing to talk about knowing ourselves - perhaps we never do know ourselves fully - we ARE, as he says, insubstantial on some levels. however, to jump from that assertion to a claim that all sincerity must be bull, is to lose something of the logic of his argument. it seems to me that to argue that we can never be sincere is to undermine your own argument. perhaps he only means we can never be sincere about ourselves, but i think he's wrong. inasmuch as to be sincere means to be true, or correct, perhaps it is fair to say we cannot always be completely sincere about our own natures. we must be limited by our own understanding of ourselves, and of course it is not at all inconceivable that we say things (albeit without realizing it) which are actually aren't true. BUT if we take sincere (as the OED does) to also mean genuine, honest, not feigned, then surely we can be sincere, about all manner of things, ourselves included? would it not be incredibly nihilistic to say that everything heartfelt should be regarded with scepticism?

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 2:55 PM

something from Oswald Chambers that i read this morning:

The Never-Failing God
Joshua 11:6

What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what God says or to what I fear? Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I have heard what He says? "For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.' So we may boldly say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"

"I will in no way fail you" - not for all my sin and selfishness and stubbornness and waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never fail me? If I have listened to this say-so of God's, then let me listen again.

"Neither will I in any way forsake you." Sometimes it is not difficulty that makes me think God will forsake me, but drudgery. There is no Hill Difficulty to climb, no vision given, nothing wonderful or beautiful, just the commonplace day in and day out--can I hear God's say-so in these things?

We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and by, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, in the present minute. If we have God's say-so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 10:05 PM

another rain-filled day, which i have spent in the british library. i'm still more interested in what everyone else is doing than in adding to my unfinished thoughts on camus. some of the books on desks around me today:
- Thomas Hardy
- law
- The Queen's Image
working on the assumption that everyone else is as inquisitive as I am (they probably aren't) I make an effort to have as random a selection of books on my desk as possible. today's collection comprised:
- something on paternity & sacrifice
- something on psychoanalysis
- Derrida, 'La Carte Postale'
- something published in Belgium in 1878 which I think I must have ordered by mistake

Despite my continued enjoyment of watching everyone else work, I remain unable to quantify my own productivity. In an afternoon Flaubert would have been proud of, I managed to add the word 'do' to my introduction, having previously taken it out in a moment of rashness. This done, I felt quite happy with myself, though I couldn't say how many pages (or lines, perhaps) I came up with today.

train reading: on bulls**t by Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt. i particularly enjoyed the 'over-the-shoulder' reading clearly going on the commuter train home tonight. it's actually a very clever little book, whose opening premise, that 'One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bulls**t' is quite true as far as i'm concerned. more on this once i've finished it...

listening to: james blunt

posted by Joanna Ruth @ 6:39 PM