Art and Truth

Dan at PaperMind is thinking about art and truth.  He’s doing it via the work of Dorothy L. Sayers.  I remember when I was 12 and at home with Glandular Fever, I read straight through my Mum’s collection of Dorothy L. Sayers detective novels.  They were fabulous fun.  But Sayers was also a serious scholar.

Some of Dan’s comments reminded me of J.R.R. Tolkien – another writer who not only wrote stories, but wrote about them, too.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that in one of Sayer’s novels, she has Tolkien appear at one point (namelessly).  In any case, here’s a quotation from Tolkien on art and truth:

Fantasy is a natural human activity.  It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity.  On the contrary.  The keener and clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make.  If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they are cured.  If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion.

For all you fans of fantasy literature, here is the justification, (as if you needed one!).  He goes on:

For creative Fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it.  So upon logic was founded the nonsense that displays itself in the tales and rhymes of Lewis Carroll.  If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stores about frog-kings would not have arisen.

But of course, Tolkien doesn’t want to indiscriminantly defend artistic invention.  But the abuse of stories shouldn’t surprise us:

Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess.  It can be ill done.  It can be put to evil uses.  It may even delude the minds out of which it came.  But of what human thing in this fallen world is this not true?  Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors’ own evil.  But they have made false gods out of other materials: even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice.  Abusus non tollit usum.  Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

Filed under: art , art, Dorothy L. Sayers, On Fairy Stories, Tolkien, truth

Having productive work days: 2×3

I came by this idea in a flash the other day.  I’ve no idea where it came from.  Others might’ve thought the same thing — I’m not claiming originality here, but it seemed good to me, so I’m trying it out.

A work day is about 7 or 8 hours, (unless you’re in a more-demanding-than-average job, such as a management position).  By the time you take lunch, answer emails and phone calls, and do other small tasks, it seems safe to assume you have 6 hours of solid time to devote to your current projects.

Few people work 6 hours straight on something.  A break and some refreshment are called for — so I divided this into two.  Basically, this means you have two three hour periods each work day to work on something consistently: 2×3.

For my work (PhD in history and philosophy), I need at least three hours straight to do any decent reading, writing or marking.  So this suits me perfectly.  My university assumes I work 7 hour days, and so once you combine email and admin tasks, this works out pretty evenly into a 35 hour week.

Why does this matter?  Well, when most of what you do is reading or writing, it can be hard to feel as if you’re making progress.  Especially if you’re reading, not writing.  With writing, one can always hit Control-T-W and see the word-count creeping up, but with reading, it’s a little deflating to answer to the question ‘what did you do this week’ with ‘I read this one book’.

If I use my 2×3 time management system, however, I can note that there are 10 sessions each working week – more if I want to fit one into some spare time on the weekend – and I can also note that I, say, read for 7 out of ten, and wrote for 3.  Suddenly I feel a whole lot more productive, and when asked, can give a clearer accounting of my week.  More importantly, it means I can plan my coming week with relative ease, and gives me a clear directive to not be interrupted.  Phone calls, emails, conversations with colleagues can all wait until the end of the three hour slot.

Filed under: Uncategorized , PhD, Time management, work, work and emotions

A blog is a tool

A blog is a tool. It should help you to get things done – contrary to the common wisdom that they are distractions.

If Getting Things Done requires getting tasks out of the mind and writing them down, then a blog is a perfect place to record them. No more pesky scraps of paper floating around.

But – and this is the more tenuous thought – does getting things done for you mean they get things done for somebody else? To put it another way, do you really need to put something up on the web for everybody to see?

I wish there was an easy way to have a blog that sits on my desktop, that wasn’t online. It would be a useful tool. You can do it, but from what I could tell, you need to turn your computer into a pretend server that hosts its own blog. Beyond my skills. Computer programmers please?

Filed under: Uncategorized , Blogging, get things done, tools