A Different Sort of Commencement

I begin with lyrics from Van Morrison, quoting the song "The Beauty of the Days Gone By:"

It brings a longing to my soul
To contemplate my own true self
And keep me young as I grow old
The beauty of the days gone by

The music that we used to play
So lift your glass and raise it high
To the beauty of the days gone by
I'll sing it from the mountain top
Down to the valley down below
Because my cup doth overflow
With the beauty of the days gone by
...
Oh my memory it does not lie
Of the beauty of the days gone by
The beauty of the days gone by
It brings a longing to my soul
To contemplate my own true self
And keep me young as I grow old

So much has occurred over the last days, weeks, months, years, that I am left flummoxed with how to respond. Many friends of mine are concerned about my absence, as I am for theirs, and so have settled, albeit somewhat dissatisfied, on creating a blog to share my baking, my thinking, my writing, and my passions.

I refer to Van Morrison's words because on my departure from Kansas City, depositing Miss Lauren Fulner at a diner across from her bus stop, Down the Road was the first album I chose and these words in particular seemed to capture my excitement and joy for what has come to pass. Can one be excited for the past? I do not rightly know. What I can say is that I am passionate to undertake what is to come with the bonds and insights that have led me here.

Shortly, I will describe some of my recent adventures at the Wakarusa music festival in Arkansas at Mulberry Mountain, but I wish to say something more reflective. I titled this journal "Philosophy that Bakes Bread," which comes from the phrase, "Philosophy bakes no bread." This statement has received a good deal of criticism and reflection, but I find it blatantly wrong; it is so profoundly wrong that I contradict it. I say this because my experience is such that philosophy bakes bread, and in fact baking bread philosophizes. Perhaps the last four years have been so saturated by philosphers of food (notably Drs Lisa Heldke and Deane Curtin) that I have joined--or presently attempt to join--their ranks, or it could be that my baking and my philosophizing cohere to the point of hybridity, of intersubjectivity. As my friends know and will remark on increasingly here, baking bread is a passionate, rooting, methodical, creative, historical, and meditative experience for me. Without baking, I lose ground and focus, frequently becoming despondent or distant or melancholy. With it, I am enthused with passion and insight, on ideas about virtue and Nature or the social psychology of my friends and family, or an abundance of worthy waypoints for contemplation. (Note: I use Nature capitalized to incorporate its wider and historical use in the works of many writers, such as Spinoza and also, perhaps oddly, Lovecraft.) I preface this journal with these statements as an explanation and an introduction, hoping that readers, commentators, and interlocutors may take note of strange articulations in this personal, lived reality for the power of such actions in my theorizing and action.

And for now, thank you for taking the time to read my words and encourage your comments. I have innumerable people with whom I wish to communicate regularly who are more distant than ever. I hope to post intending discussion rather than sermonization. So, if Mr Van Morrison provides some celebration of the past, I now call attention to the future, proposing a toast, taken from Mr Don DeLillo's novel, White Noise, "May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance action according to a plan."