'ya think?

January has been holding true to itself, it's a l-o-n-g, hunker-down month, filled with new projects, goals and reading.
I'm offering no commentary on how these links synch up for me today, they just do.

...learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about "the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master".

Later:

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
--David Foster Wallace

His whole address found here:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words


And then this. T&S linked to this as a pdf. Well worth it:
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/universal-intellectual-standards/527

More by the same Linda:
The single most important reason for deliberately evaluating your own thinking is that thinking, left to itself, just cannot be trusted. Everyone thinks, but everyone doesn’t think well. And no one thinks well all of the time. 

It is important to recognise that people already do evaluate their thinking. But they often fail to use intellectual standards to do so. In other words, they often fail to clarify their thinking, and to make sure it is accurate, logical, relevant, significant, broad, deep and fair (just to name a few intellectual standards).

http://www.hr-matters.info/feat2011/2011.jul.BecomingACriticOfYourOwnThinking.htm

i'm not just sagging and bagging. I'm also stooping and drooping. Sigh.

My eye doctor has been talking to me seriously about having Lasix surgery done to my eyes. For the past couple of years he has reminded me of the benefits, particularly since my near vision has become less and less. Since my distance vision is horrible, it would be nice to be able to see at some level. So this is the year ld and I decided to just do it. Only one problem. As I have aged my right eye has begun to droop. Official term: ptosis. It's caused by long term contact lens usage and by genetics. It's bugged me that I look so goofy but what can you do? As dad used to say, "I'm degenerating right on schedule."

Grandma Busby, my great-grandmother, had this. And in the same right eye, too. See? You can tell.
When I was a very little girl, her droopy eye frightened me and I never wanted to be around her. I feel bad now, because my mother would always scold me and want me to kiss and hug her. I would but I ran away as fast as I could. When you are small aging adults and their old bodies are not really understood.

Anyway, my eye doctor said before the Lasix can be done I have to fix my droopy eye. Today I met with an eye surgeon who confirmed there is a definite medical reason to repair my eye as the ptosis has affected my peripheral vision.

As much as I hate the idea of doing any nipping and tucking, I am happy at the prospects of not scaring off my grandchildren. Being able to see will be nice, too.

wedding pics. pt 1

I loved the day. A sweet celebration for two sweet people. More pics to come.