…is a title that basically means “supreme commander” in Russian. I registered that tonight as a blog name.
Why?
Well… I want to write a travel blog. Not that this isn’t about journeys… but I’m looking for something a bit more… marketable. Something I can parlay into writing/editing jobs while overseas, and just generally. So that blog will be a bit flashier, a bit more succinct, and just a wee bit less personal – or at least less psychology/self-work oriented.
Why “voevoda bolshoia,” though?
There is, I must confess, a book that has sent me to Russia. A book written by an elegant and well-mannered little Scottish woman who is now dead. A woman whose passing was mourned with such profundity by her readers. The greatest writer, I might say, of this late age of humanity. Yes, my dears, none other than Dorothy Dunnett.
I can’t tell you how much of an emotional impact this book had on me. I was unable to move, unable to breathe… unable to do anything but feel Francis Crawford of Lymond’s emotions as he stripped away his humanity to become the voevoda bolshoia to Ivan the Terrible. So, the blog is named for Francis Crawford, who glitters like ice, or crystal… or damascened steel, and for his creator. The little Scottish woman of impeccable intellect who has sent me to Russia.
None of that, of course, is going on that blog.
I want to document my travels more. I want to document my travels in a way that does not make them take a backseat to other, more important content. I’ll leave that for my friends, and for myself. The others get the voevoda.
So I’m selling a lot of my things in an attempt both to get rid of them and to bring in a little money. Expenditures, as you might guess, are rather high for me right now. If anyone wants Latin textbooks, I have two for sale, with accompanying workbooks.
Before I either list my books (the ones I know will sell) on eBay or take them all to Strand out of frustration and get like $5 for 20 books, I wanted to make my friends an offer. Yes, my dears, I will give you my books. For free! Just pay the shipping cost to get them to wherever you are. Or if I’ll see you soon, you can tell me which ones you want and I’ll bring them to you.
There is one book I want to send to J specifically, and 4 more that I want to give to Karl to hold for me (scholarly books which are very expensive and/or hard to find) but here are the rest:
Nathaniel Branden:
The Psychology of Self Esteem
The Art of Living Consciously
Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
Alice Miller:
The Body Never Lies
Drama of the Gifted Child
The Truth Will Set You Free
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog – Bruce Perry
Your Money or Your Life – Dominguez and Robin (Rich? You want?)
Various historical books:
The Campaigns of Alexander – Arrian
Consolation of Philosophy – Boethius
Collected Works, v.1 – Libanius
Alexander to Actium – Peter Green
Fiction:
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Atlas Shrugged – Rand
Julian (AWESOME book) – Gore Vidal
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
To Lie With Lions – Dorothy Dunnett
the entire House of Niccolo series (earth-shatteringly AWESOME books) – Dunnett
And various reference books that few people ever read (Bloom’s works on Shakespeare, The Bell Curve, a few French workbooks, a book on buying country property) but are interesting anyway.
Feel free to comment or email me.
Stef’s newest book is one of his best yet. I encourage you all to have a read! I quoted a section and responded to it here and can’t recommend it enough.
Filed under: self-work, voice blog, work | Tags: books, life story, philosophizing, self-work, voice blog, work
This post is partially a reaction to my post-1098 ruminations and partly a reaction to reading just the first four pages of a book called The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstine.
It contains musings on career choice, the need for passion, my ideal life progression vis a vis jobs, a reminiscence on how my historical interests progressed and radically altered… oh, and a bunch of other stuff. Am hoping this will be useful to the people contemplating this stuff, especially GG, C, and N.
This is the positive review I talk about from The Simple Dollar. It also gives a broad overview of the contents of the book, so you can see whether it will be of interest to you or not. I trust Trent’s taste in books from a long experience of reading things he’s reviewed and generally agreeing with that he says.
Without further ado, here is the post:
The Renaissance Soul: Musings on Career and FDR 1098
A partial list of things I’ve been interested in:
animal husbandry, medieval history, homesteading, brewing, embroidery, construction work, 1960s automobiles, guns, Latin, computers, UFOs, siege technology, swords, camping, Welsh, horses, Irish dance, Hughes Aircraft airplanes, 1940s films, greyhounds, stoic philosophy, Baroque opera, Risk, bomb-making (hey! I’m an anarchist), 1950s fashion, French, poetry, Mark Rothko, farming, card games, cooking, wicca (no, was never a practitioner), James Bond, dressage, ballet, Star Wars, holistic medicine, Occitan, physics, animal rescue, mountaineering, early Byzantine clothing, 9th century Spain, the FBI, foxhunting, archery…
Average length of all-consuming interest in said things? 3 months, or thereabouts. How am I ever going to figure out a career path? Lord.
ETA: After a convo in the chat room tonight… I know exactly how I’m going to figure out a career path. I know exactly what’s been trying to hit me over the head since October, and for a long time before that. What Stef said in 1098 and I promptly forgot. That is: it’s not about me. So, not about my self-aggrandizing by becoming a whirlwind Renaissance woman. Not about me serially switching careers in a desperate bid to seek happiness and validation externally. No. No… because there’s one thing that I have a deep and abiding love for. One fixed star. One goddess in my pantheon. The only thing I have ever loved – however far I may stray from her, however obscured she may become, however much my false self fights – in the deep and abiding way that keeps passion alive even in the face of fear and pain and loneliness and derision… is the truth. Not history. Not… any of those things listed above. The bright star in the firmament is truth. Wisdom. Philosophy. And for those things I will never lose passion.
This is a response to one of the metaphors at the end of Stef’s new book – Practical Anarchy. The book, if you’ve not read it, is 36,000 varieties of awesome. You owe it to yourself to read. (Will link to the free book once it’s finally released to more than D+ donators.)
Here’s what Stef says:
I am also acutely aware of the reality that had I been born and lived in a different time – a later time, or an earlier one – I would have been peddling a bicycle with a broken chain, if you understand me. The power of the conversation that I have initiated and am involved in is what gives my mind traction, links and engages it in the real world; it is the other stick that brings the new fire.
Thus for me it is an irreplaceable privilege to be doing what I am, where I am, during this time in history. I am a man who is excited by navigation, not the unloading of cargo. I live to explore, not to settle and consolidate. I live for battle, not administration.
Amen, brother. My dear brother, amen.
The entire book is beautiful. One section at the beginning and two sections at the end, even more so. If the amount of tears shed by the reader equals the amount shed by the writer… I can see why writing this took so much out of Stef.
So, without further ado…
Alright, so Stef has released all three of his non-fiction books for free – an amazingly generous gesture, methinks. I’ll certainly be sending this link around quite a bit. Hopefully it’ll help spread the conversation even further.
I’ll write or record later about what happened today. No sturm und drang – just some realizations.
Right now, I feel a heaviness in my limbs which may or may not be from having spent an hour at the gym. Note to self: do not stand on one leg in the shower.
Off to commune with Nicholas for a while, and with the people in my head who are like him and his family.
…But now my love has looked on your face, and in meeting her, you have met me, or part of the core of me that does not seem to alter. The rest is a bruised thing which passes from person to person, and which never seems whole. But perhaps time will cure that.
Filed under: attirance, self-work, voice blog | Tags: books, friends, love, MEcosystem, self-work, voice blog
PLEASE listen to this two-parter, my dear friends. I think I’ve made a real breakthrough here as far as seeing some of the fucking evil, insidious templates that are at work within my own mind – and maybe yours as well. I wasn’t originally going to post this… but it’s powerful, and I want to share it. Take a look. The first part is what’s been cooking around in my mind from listening to Stef’s 5-part series on ambivalence – specifically the ambivalence I feel in one relationship in my life, and the origins of that feeling. The second part is what started cooking in my head after an extremely illuminating conversation I had with another friend. I realized – with his invaluable help – exactly what template was most contributing to this feeling of ambivalence, and just how fucking far down the rabbit hole of “love = anxiety management” goes.
Ambivalence and Anxiety Management – part 1
The Insidious Template – part 2
Part 2 also contains an excerpt from Jane Eyre. Actually, it’s a wonderful MEcosystem book. Jane’s “Conscience” and “Passion” voices speak to her often. This is the original MEcosystem, 1840s style. But there’s entirely too much god in the work. I only realized that a couple of months ago when I first re-read it with my atheist, rationalist, empiricist eyes. It was my favorite book when I was a kid. Meh. :)
