Happy New Year

Well, this year's blogging break was about equal parts excitement and frustration for me, and I consequently find myself having to ease myself into blogging. To do that, I will share a highly appropriate, inspirational quote I was reminded of this morning from a digest of the Harry Binswanger Letter:

It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it. -- Kira Argounova, in We the Living, by Ayn Rand, p. 107

Most of this break we spent visiting relatives in Florida. I thought I'd adequately budgeted morning time for the vagaries of travel, visiting, and holidays, but I didn't figure on my three-year-old son to appear, beaming, each morning at 6:30, to end "writing time" an hour early practically every day. (Except, oddly, today, which allowed me time to write two posts.) So, for once, I end a break not exactly jumping at the bit to write, but that isn't really a bad thing. I was able to break out of rut or two, and the desire to continue some of the exploration I did is sure to be profitable. So I'll thank him for leaving me hungry for more with the early dismissals.

Before I leave today, I'll put in a good word for HBL: I have subscribed for years and have always found the discussions there interesting and worthwhile. But it has improved over even that steadily since its renaming a year or so ago from "The Harry Binswanger List." I don't get to participate nearly as much as I'd like, and I still manage to gain incredible value from my subscription. As just one example, over the break, I downloaded and listened to a fascinating presentation given by Ashley Karen Roy about Alex Epstein's method of cultural activism. This came from one new feature at HBL, called "Meeting of the Minds," in which members can hear presentations or hold discussions in real time most Sundays. (Or listen later, at a more convenient time.) What impressed me most about Roy's talk was that, as Epstein considered how successful mass movements succeeded, she analyzed how he succeeds on an individual level. I'll stop there and make a plug: If you have a serious interest in Ayn Rand's work, I strongly recommend that you consider subscribing, which is easy through the longstanding offer there of a free, two week trial membership.

That's just a sample of what I've been doing over the past week, and I look forward to pursuing that line of inquiry and a few other things I ran across, thanks in large part to HBL.

-- CAV

P.S. Twitter, of all things, deserves mention. I have, up to this point, mainly used it to automatically announce new blog posts, but I have found the email digests they send very useful. I don't want to stare at a feed all day, but I will be looking for some way to begin mining Twitter for information. Suggestions for efficient ways to do that are welcome.

Updates

Today: Corrected some wording.