This morning I felt a unusual sense of peace upon awaking.

Yesterday with help from WordPress support I solved a issue with the back-end of this blog, an issue which had haunted me for some weeks.  The solution did not come easy.  It was necessary to grasp the vocabulary, as well as to visually understand the layout of some html programming.  Therein lay the key to fixing something which was broken.  This is to  describe the beginnings of learning a new language, which is never easy.  The unanticipated “bonus” was the change experienced in my psyche, the endorphin “high” of becoming something more as a human being.  That is what I felt upon waking this morning.

Who am I?  I couldn’t say.  Focus upon the question reveals a swirl of voices, each competing for dominance.  “I” am no less than many changing moods, inclinations, fears and desires and partially understood ideas.  It seems that every accomplished project, large or small, serves to give a bit more definition to “who I really am.”

I have started reading a book received for Christmas: TIME OF THE MAGICIANS by Wolfram Eilenberger.  The author tells the story of the social and intellectual state of Europe from about 1919 to 1929.  This is context for writing about the work of four intellectual powerhouses of the time, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Cassirer, and Martin Heidegger.  I offer this quotation from page 37.

Each of us can,
to some degree,
accompany and shape our own evolution
and thereby become
the person we really are.

We call this process
criticism.
Or also simply:
philosophy.

Excerpt, Time of the Magicians,
By Wolfram Eilenberger

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What would life be without music?  Perhaps you’d agree — a life without as much satisfaction.  This tune seems just right to propel us forward toward 2022.  Particularly if you happen to have a bent toward philosophy, how often must one simply jump!  Jump by Van Halen.

The backstory…..

The synth line was written circa 1981 by Eddie Van Halen but it was rejected by the other members of the band. In 1983 riding around in the back of his 1951 Mercury, with band roadie Larry Hostler driving, David Lee Roth listened repeatedly to the tune. Roth later told Musician magazine that Hostler was “probably the most responsible for how it came out.” The lyrics were written as an ontological invitation to action, life and love.

…..Dave wrote the lyrics that afternoon in the backseat of his Mercury convertible. We finished all vocals that afternoon and mixed it that evening at Eddie Van Halen’s newly constructed home studio. – Wikipedia

(You and I may be “roadies.”  Never underestimate the influence which you have on others.)