From the Big 3 Auto-Motivational Manufacturers

From the Big 3 Auto-Motivational Manufacturers
(academics, work, service)

To former students of liberal art, linguistics and fiction,
as well as prospective “students” of American Literature,
Transcendentalism, and Dialectic—seemingly distinct
courses but all of them, really, the

SAME GAME (ludic, lusion)

Different tokens & players, sure: but the same process:

TAKING SENSE —let’s call it: the convention.
The distribution of meanings already made: already
rolled, pre-packaged, shrink wrapped convenient
cultural artifact. As opposed to

MAKING SENSE.

The wonder:

can we re-configure, reformat, recalibrate how we
manufacture auto-motivation in these days of meta-
sustainable re-adjustment and change across the
universe? Shifting the emphasis from Taking to
Making sense?

Yes we can.

Could any course be about THINKING?
About Mind minding mind mindfully—
whatever the token topic, content,
subject & object matter?

Yes IT can.

A course is a course is a course:
think of all the courses you’ve “taken”:
different tokens –subject-object matter, yes?
But all the SAME—structurally, environmentally:
syllabi-driven. textual harassment, quiz & exam prodded,
paper- writing poster presentation “research”: all reduced to
a digital read-out called grade and grade-point-average. How
much content do you remember? How much sense were you
MAKING?

But you learn how-to-take-a-course, true? Course-ness.

Just describing here. Not judging. There’s
a big difference, right? Between
Viewing and Judging.
Description and Prescription.
Aesthetics and Ethics.
Process and Product
Learning and Education
Making and Taking
etc.

Prelude. (pre-ludic: literally: before the game; foreplay)

Things aren’t black & white, Sam. What: are you on acid, or
something? You keep dichotomizing! Splitting. Reducing to
binaries—dualities, polarizing, damnit.

Some of my linguistics students last semester: accusing me of
splitting hair, chopping logic, reductionism, fundamentalism
redundancy, over-simplification—OR (and) overstatement: that
too: exaggeration, hyperbole, per-version (twisting), attention
efficiency: my laser-like exclusion of whatever don’t suit my
agenda at any particular point in time and what a criminal
discrimination that is to All the Rest: everything I ignore,
ignore-ant.. A violation to the whole and holy.
A rip-off.

Guilty. I admit it.
Confess it’s true.
I am procrustean:
a reductionist
an elaborationist,
cutting & stretching
to suit my bias & belief
& I can do no justice
to what I talk about:
language or literature,
big ideas or small. A
Cosmic Shmuck, as
Robert Anton Wilson
describes it: c’est moi. .

LSD is a new one on me—maybe provoked by the straight
arrow & mandala image I salted my hand-outs with this fall:
over and over. Saturated

“Look, “I said: “let these 2 images stand for (embody, manifest,
re-present) a fundamental difference that makes a difference as
opposed to all the many differences that don’t: variations on a
theme, and diversity and we encourage and celebrate them: differences,
sure: but no need to be threatened, they are merely differences that
don’t make a difference as opposed to, as contrasted with, not to
be conflated, collapsed, or confused with:

Differences that Make a DIFFERENCE



Let this be a fundamental SIGN in our talk about American
Literature, Transcendentalism, and in our practice of Dialectic:
2 processes by which we process and are processed:

On the ONE hand:

the non-linear,
simultaneous,
constellational
all-at-once-ness
analogical potential
suggested by the
mandala: seemingly
frozen explosive
fire-work possibilities
not unlike un-conscious
process. inaccessible
and therefore
incommensurate
with and beyond the

purposive ego-conscious aims and goals and assess-mental objective
measurement of linear digital-logical beginning middle & ending
discontinuities: the direct and straight arrow-of-time we experience as
waking life, yes? The dominant paradise we negotiate to getRdone
all our days and ways to make known…

on the Other Hand.

Anyone can improve my terms and images. I wish you would.
In fact, I beg for difference—would turn it up, put it in play—
or what’s a college for?

LUDIC: in play: the SAMES & Differences game.
ONE and the Many, or as Barak Obama likes to say
E Pluribus Unum: from many…. we are ONE. or if
you prefer: E. Unum Pluribus—from ONE….we are many.

Get it?
This is the name of the game—in my courses at least..
Whether it’s American Literature or Transcendentalism
or Dialectic. One and many—without collapsing,
conflating, or confusing either.

Any questions?

(Hit reply or better: Reply to All.
Courses Without Border in these
Troubling & Terrific Times.)

xxxooo, Sam