The circuit of my expanding life [Bryan]

I am prepared to admit that finishing my basement is something of a mid-life crisis for me. I've been engrossed by it. I have preferred working on the basement to eating and sleeping (ask Ellie), reading and writing. I think about little else. I haven't let anybody else help. This is behavior that goes beyond the motive of simply wanted more finished space.

Let me give you some semi-serious reflections about all this. I recently read that some people run marathons "as a testament to the fact that there is still substance and life in them." Similarly, after getting tenure and after the necessary narrowing of focus and personality that comes with that, I am finishing the basement as a testament to the fact that I am still "alive" in the sense of developing my skills, my personality, and my substance. I will literally saw my way out of the narrow box that I may have constructed for myself. Only by continued learning do we become and remain fully human.

Some of you know I'm a huge fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson said it best:

"There goes in the world a notion, that the scholar should be a recluse, a valetudinarian, — as unfit for any handiwork or public labor, as a penknife for an axe. As far as this is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise. Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.

The world lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I run eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct, that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructers in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products."