In class on Monday, we had the opportunity to discuss some of the topics that I brought up in my previous learning journal, which was really exciting for me. Normally I expect to wait for some time before I get answers to my questions, but not this time! We spent some time thinking and writing about what a typical day will look like for us. Although I don't know what exactly to expect, and don't know exactly where I'm living or how much time it'll take to get places, or any of the nitty-gritty details, I really tried to imagine what I want a typical day to look like. I'm afraid I'm going to want to be horribly scheduled (I've kind of got an Achilles' heel with schedules. I barely get nicked once, and kabloom, I'm history. [Ten points for anyone who can identify the source of that phrase.]) So here's a basic outline of how I want to spend my time: I want to get up early, but not too early. I can't function at all with too little sleep, so I'm thinking I'll get up around seven. I love morning air, and I love watching cities wake up, so I think I'll plan on walking every morning for a half an hour or so. Studying is obviously a must, so I will plan on spending three or so hours in the library before lunch, at which point I will definitely break and eat. (Remember how I can't function without a lot of sleep? I can't function without food very well either.) I'll expect to spend a couple hours every day synthesizing my research and writing, but whether that will be in the afternoon or evening probably depends most on what other things I'll be doing. I figure that's a place where I can be flexible, as long as I take time each week to plan those synthesis hours. In my free time, I want to explore the city. I want to see the sights, smell the smells, hear the sounds. I absolutely want to see some plays. ... I'm beginning to feel like I'm daydreaming, so I'll just go ahead and stop right here.
I was going to try to connect this with today's reading, but I really just can't figure how I'd ever do that, since today's reading was all about English dress codes. My favorite part was when Fox writes, "We English are at our sartorial best when we have strict, formal rules and traditions to follow - when we are either literally or effectively 'in uniform'. Left to our own devices, we flounder and fail, having little or no natural sense of style or elegance - suffering from, as George Orwell put it, an 'almost general deadness to aesthetic issues.'" My first thought? "I'm going to fit in so well!" At least, to some extent. I really thought that Fox made an interesting point here, that the English are very well suited to following rules, but remain rather lost without them. It hails back to a previous paragraph in which she points out that "national identity is about rules, and lack of rules is symptomatic of loss of identity." This simply makes sense, because how can you say that something is English, or Tibetan, or Swedish if there's no rule defining it, even an unwritten one? It's essentially impossible to ascribe something to a culture without there being a definite boundary, or rule, that separates it from something else.
I can't help but wonder how this applies to other means of identification. Naturally, I'm trying to think about how this applies to my research topic, and the ideas that are coming to my mind begin here: rules are rules because they are rules, by which I mean, of course (wink), that the stability and enforceability of a rule is what gives it clout and makes it dependable. You can establish identity upon rules because rules have a tendency to stay the same, or at least not change very frequently. In terms of Renaissance cosmology, there were very definite rules and structure. And then Copernicus came along with his theory, and suddenly we're dealing with a universal (and by that, I suppose I mean both the universe and in the sense of all the people) identity crisis. The rules have changed. The universe has shifted from around us. Who are we? What is this universe thing now? Who is God? Where is He? If we aren't the center of His creation, where do we belong? What is our place? Is God mindful of us? I imagine that these are the types of questions people would have been asking. I just want to know how they answered them, or how they tried to answer them. It seems to me as though this realization that we weren't the physical center of the universe permanently dislodged our identity. The scope of the universe has expanded so far beyond our understanding and ability to comprehend that it seems like a vast, lawless void where nothing is stable. If there aren't any rules, or we can't understand them, then how can the universe be something we can depend on? How can we identify ourselves within it?
Of course, my personal religious beliefs tell me that there are definitely rules to the universe, and that we simply can't comprehend all of them right now. I believe that God is physically located somewhere out there, and that, though we may not be the physical center of His creations, we are the emotional center and the purpose of all of the wild and wonderful things He has created. However, like I've pointed out, I don't think these beliefs of mine are shared by the majority of people in the world. Perhaps we, as humankind, simply got too busy building our identity on the rules of what we could see, instead of rules of faith.
In one of the books I've looked at for one of my sources, Jamie James explains what I'm trying to say very nice and concisely. He writes:
As scientific observation accumulated information ... the universe revealed itself to be far more complicated than anyone had imagined. The assumption throughout centuries of science had been that there was a logic underlying the apparent chaos of creation, but that human perception was too clouded and fallacious to discern it. By the nineteenth century science had abandoned that position ... An abrupt conceptual turnabout had taken place: whereas Plato had taught that anything the eye could see was illusory, modern science teaches that the only things that do exist are those we can see and touch (even if we "see" them with radio signals, or "touch" them with remote robotic devices. (James 5)
Essentially, we (humanity) got caught up in rules, in the stability of observable facts, and because there's so much that we can't take in, we can't find those facts we need to build rules. And without rules, we lose a sense of identity and purpose.
Can I just point out that it's suddenly no surprise to me why I love the Renaissance so much—those people are my kind of people, their beliefs are so much better aligned with my own (in some respects) than those of the modern world. I am beyond thrilled to see how they negotiated their shifting place in the universe.
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