Saturday, January 15, 2005
Positioning
I've been working on the knowledge base, and adding several more topics, enough that I've had to upgrade to the next size of notebook to carry my studies around. It's going slower than I expected, but I'm rather pleased with the direction it's been taking. A brief survey of my progress:
History is already pointed in the direction I want to take it, but it's a bit stiff and not well connected to the local perspective that I want. I haven't reached to current events, but pushing this too far and fast leaves the particular peoples and communities I want unconnected.
In investigation of peoples and communities, because different approaches demand different orders of investigation, so balancing these demands is particularly challenging. The outlines are reasonably clear; but the obstacle has been in connecting these to the next level, the major social institutions.
A tentative order of significance of these is economics, religion, government, education, and families, but again, there is enough of a problem with balance with different pushes and pulls that I can't take these in a fixed order.
I'm most pleased with the progress in the last few days in areas of culture: These have been in what I've thought of as the inaccessible middle, but they will probably the most practically useful areas of study.
I've also been making progress in studies of the fundamentals of human society, and geography, and in psychology and the human body. These are not my favorite areas to study and I've found it difficult at times to make progress.
At the level of science and nature, I'm also making progress in biology and the earth sciences.
Overall, the impression I get is that there is considerable "inertia" in what I already have developed, and I'm having to reposition some of my studies so that I can correct my aim and sharpen my focus.
History is already pointed in the direction I want to take it, but it's a bit stiff and not well connected to the local perspective that I want. I haven't reached to current events, but pushing this too far and fast leaves the particular peoples and communities I want unconnected.
In investigation of peoples and communities, because different approaches demand different orders of investigation, so balancing these demands is particularly challenging. The outlines are reasonably clear; but the obstacle has been in connecting these to the next level, the major social institutions.
A tentative order of significance of these is economics, religion, government, education, and families, but again, there is enough of a problem with balance with different pushes and pulls that I can't take these in a fixed order.
I'm most pleased with the progress in the last few days in areas of culture: These have been in what I've thought of as the inaccessible middle, but they will probably the most practically useful areas of study.
I've also been making progress in studies of the fundamentals of human society, and geography, and in psychology and the human body. These are not my favorite areas to study and I've found it difficult at times to make progress.
At the level of science and nature, I'm also making progress in biology and the earth sciences.
Overall, the impression I get is that there is considerable "inertia" in what I already have developed, and I'm having to reposition some of my studies so that I can correct my aim and sharpen my focus.
