Open Comportment

OK champs. I'm back for another shot at blogging.

I'm a terrible blogger.

I have this ridiculous zero-sum fear that for every word I blog, that's one less word in my dissertation. As if I am hoarding them. As if, like my eggs, they are dying at a faster rate each year I age.

In any case.

We're all good here. I'm unemployed, which is turning out quite fine. Much cooking. A much cleaner house. More naps. Much more writing on the dissertation.

And the excitement of the research trip increases! I'm going to pine beetle territory to talk to people about living with the pine beetle. I'm going in with an open heart and mind. Whatever people want to talk about is cool with me. And when folks want to be silent, I'll attend to that too.

One my new favourite philosophers, Jane Bennett, writes that:

"If we think we already know what is out there, we will almost surely miss it."

She recommends that, in order to detect the flow of affect (which is basically feeling) between humans and non-humans, including objects like nails and clouds and pipe cleaners, a person should:

"suspend suspicion and adopt a more open comportment."

Bennett's book Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things sets up a premise that everything has intent, influence and movement, even inorganic stuff. She writes about how food affects bodies, how metals change and morph and become people and landscapes and animals. It's pretty genius stuff, and really simple too.

Anyhoo. I like Bennett. She makes the world magical for atheists.