The Book "Make it Stick" Shows that School is Against Neuroscience

This post is going to be about a must-read for adult autodidacts called "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. This book is about how most learners are actually going about studying the wrong way. Furthermore, the public education system seems to be designed around vibes and myths about learning techniques that are unsupported by neuroscience. The authors of this book call these myths "education folklore." This book also provides techniques that you can use to actually learn instead of falling into illusions of competency.

Learning is supposed to be hard 

One of the most important points in this book is that learning is supposed to be hard. If you don't make mistakes, you're not learning. Many learners fall into the trap of repeating easy tasks they are comfortable with. But "no pain no gain" applies to brain gains, don't forget! The authors are actually in favour of quizzes and tests, even though "education folklore" by woke snowflakes says that tests only lead to rote memorization and increased anxiety. However, the solution is actually to have several predictable low-sakes tests. Not pop quizzes, because those are universally hated. But not huge midterms or finals either as those are indeed anxiety-inducing and lead to cramming. Frequent, low-stakes quizzing is the way to go as this leads to effortful recall and makes things stick in your brain better. Without memory, there can actually be no progressing to more creative uses of knowledge. This means that while studying, you shouldn't be just re-reading passages but actually asking yourself questions and quizzing yourself. 

Also, stop being scared of mistakes and failure. They are necessary for growth. Take your ego out of it. 

Personally, I use Anki for memorizing vocabulary in Anishinaabemowin and I recommend it for all language learners out there (or even medical students, since y'all gotta memorize insane amounts of stuff). It follows the principles of this book because it doesn't show you flashcards you already know. It's going to be over a year before Anki shows me "miigwech," (the Anishinaabemowin word for "thank you," which I will never forget because it is literally seared into my brain, the first word I learned in the language and one that is familiar to many non-Indigenous people in southern Ontario). But it will show me "mshkiigimin" like every day, which means "low bush cranberry" and which I find way harder to recall. 

IQ isn't fixed 

Some of the most beautiful passages in this book are basically like poetry about human potential that show that IQ isn't fixed. Children who are taught that IQ isn't fixed don't back away from a challenge. They welcome the chance to stretch their brains. In a study, children who were called "smart," picked easier puzzles. Children who were called "hardworking" picked harder puzzles to solve! Have as scroll through some of these based excerpts. I took pictures of them while reading because they were just too good.

"Learning styles" are like astrology, basically 

So I'm a former "gifted kid." This means that they put me in special classes because I had autistic special interests and liked books and I passed some kind of "gifted test" (it was lowkey kinda dumb, idk). One of the things that the teachers made us do every year for some reason in gifted classes from grades 4-8 was the "multiple intelligences test" by Howard Gardner. However, even Gardner himself admitted the concept of multiple intelligences is an art not a science. So we were forced to do this thing every year and take the results extremely seriously even though it has no scientific basis. School is against neuroscience. Unsurprising to many people, I scored very high in "verbal and linguistic intelligence" and pretty low in other categories. I was not logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, interpersonal, musical, or bodily/kinesthetic. I was a clumsy person who couldn't do math, couldn't draw, couldn't socialize and couldn't play music. I just read books. The multiple intelligences test asked me about stuff like my hobbies, so of course I picked options related to how I liked writing stories in my spare time. What that test really shows is simply what a child is interested in. That's it. It's basically just a hobbies quiz. It showed that I was very interested in reading and writing and not really in any other subject, which was true at that age. As I got older, I became interested in art, music, fitness, friendships, and even in math. But books have just been a first love (and true love) for me throughout my life. The test just showed what was obvious to everyone: I was just passionate about something. It didn't show anything about my intelligence. 

Also, stuff like "visual learner" or "auditory learner" is actually unsupported by neuroscience. Those also indicate preferences or interests, not what the most effective way you actually learn it. Learning styles or multiple intelligences are basically astrology. The teachers might as well have given us a Buzzfeed quiz about what icecream flavour you are and it would've been equally scientific. Make it Stick made me understand how cringe that was, and honestly it doesn't encourage a growth mindset because then you refuse to learn things that don't match up with your preferences. 

I actually think it did a lot of damage to me that the school system led me to believe that I wasn't a logical or mathematical person. I think I'd always have loved fiction or poetry more than math, but God I really could've used some encouragement for powering through with the math. It would've been better for me. I'm 25 now and I go to the library to read shit like "Statistics Essentials for Dummies" to figure out basic math now. 

If Wisdom is a goddess, school is desecrating Her altar 

Wisdom is personified as woman in the Bible, and many ancient cultures had goddesses of wisdom. But Wisdom lowkey woulda hated school. It is going against what she stands for. Become an adult autodidact, regardless of how shitty your school experience was. Do mathematical proofs on napkins at a restaurant. Read books while waiting in queues in public. Wisdom will come to you faster than it comes to your local director of the Board of Education. Books like Make it Stick can help you fix your brain after the damage that has been done to it by school. 

If you want to read more anti-school posts, check out this anti-school poem I wrote back in high school and this recent poem I wrote that personifies Wisdom. 

That's all for today. Good luck with learnmaxxing. 

The Marriage Trilogy (Jude the Obscure, Middlemarch, and Anna Karenina)

Warning: this post contains SPOILERS on nineteenth-century novels!!!!!!

Don't mind me if I make a lonelymaxxing type of post. I just really wanted to talk about three nineteenth-century novels that I believe everyone who ponders about marriage should read. These three books constitute what I am going to call The Marriage Trilogy. They contain everything marriage-related you can possibly ponder about. These three books are:

1. Jude the Obscure (1895) by Thomas Hardy -- (Book #1 The Doompill)

2. Middlemarch (1872) by George Eliot -- (Book #2 The Hopepill)

3. Anna Karenina (1878) by Leo Tolstoy -- (Book #3 The Compromisepill) 

This is probably not the last time you're going to have to deal with me marriageposting or divorceposting (I recently read John Milton's pamphlet on divorce!!! So watch out!!!) By the way, Hardy actually quotes Milton in Jude the Obscure!!!!

Jude the Obscure -- The Doompill 

Jude the Obscure is actually my favourite novel of all time. It's also a book that made me cry, scream, and crash out because it's the saddest novel I've ever read. Without giving too much away, the novel is about two people who love each other who can not be with each other. This is because Jude marries a woman who manipulates his sense of honour/chivalry but who he does not actually love, and Sue (who he actually loves) marries someone else who can provide for her out of convenience. But Sue does not love the old schoolmaster she marries either. Jude and Sue have an intellectual connection. Sue basically changes Jude's entire worldview through their intellectual discussions. It's clear that Hardy thinks intellectual companionship is important. They both do Latinmaxxing and Greekmaxxing, but Jude does this to study Christianity while Sue has a deeper appreciation of the classical pagan authors. And this has a huge impact on their worldviews and leads to lively debate and long yaps between them. This book is extremely doompilling because it makes it sound like everyone ends up marrying someone they settle for rather than who they truly love. Even when Sue's husband sees Jude and Sue yapping together, he has to admit that they are lowkey perfect for each other. Jude and Sue technically never get married, but you can argue that they are more married than anyone else in the book is if you use love to define marriage rather than a piece of paper. By the way, what is the Milton quote that Hardy includes as an epigraph in this book? It's this one: 

“Whoso prefers either Matrimony or other Ordinance before the Good of Man and the plain Exigence of Charity, let him profess Papist, or Protestant, or what he will, he is no better than a Pharisee.” — John Milton, quoted by Thomas Hardy

This is a truly based quote. And I don't think anything more based about marriage has been said than this in the entire history of western thought, except for maybe that thing that Nietzche said about marriage being a long conversation. That was pretty based too. However, I have not actually read Nietzche's Human, All Too Human yet so I don't have much context for that. What I can tell you is that Milton and Hardy are based and 100% correct about marriage. If you don't think that whatever Jude and Sue have is a love that is higher than marriage, you are basically a Pharisee (by which Milton means someone who cares more about the law than what is actually right)!!!!!

 

Middlemarch -- The Hopepill 

Middlemarch is the novel that made me end a relationship. I know I said Jude is my favourite novel of all time, but Middlemarch is a close second. I love how this novel basically has two stories going on at once. Dorothea, the protagonist, is in an unhappy marriage with an old scholar named Casaubon. At first, Dorothea thinks Casaubon would be a good match because she wants to be with an intellectual guy who she admires. She thinks she can help him with his scholarly work. However, Dorothea comes to the nasty realization that Casaubon has no admiration for her even though she is an intelligent woman. He has no interest in her inner life, but she remains devoted to him out of a sense of duty. Dorothea has a literary foil, or a character who is in a very similar circumstance as her, named Lydgate. Lydgate is a doctor who is very passionate about his work, but his wife Rosamond doesn't respect his passion. She rejects Lydgate's interest in the medical field, making Lydgate himself feel rejected, unhappy, and resentful. Dorothea and Lydgate both want to be valued for their minds, but their partners do not offer this to them. My relationship reminded me too much of Dorothea and Casaubon's relationship, which is why I ended it. Eventually, Dorothea meets a man named Will Ladislaw who truly loves her soul!!! There's an unforgettable scene where Will Ladislaw and his friend are in an art museum where they see Dorothea. Ladislaw's friend, an artist, says he would paint Dorothea. And Ladislaw says what she really deserves is a poem about her, meaning that he deeply appreciates her non-physical attributes. He is captivated by her voice, soul, and mind. The most romantic scene ever is after Casaubon dies and Dorothea marries Will even though he's poor. 

Anyway, men shouldn't date Rosamonds and women shouldn't date Casaubons. 

While reading Middlemarch, I took pics of passages that had me howling and screaming and posted them on my one-person Discord server. I'll share some with you guys here. This is about how Rosamond was a terrible wife:

Also here is something I saved about some characters who had more minor roles in the story, Fred and Mary. Mary wanted to fix him so badly:

Anyway, Middlemarch is based. It is more hopepilled than Jude because of how Dorothea finds Ladislaw at the end who is basically a perfect man and marries him. 

Also, this is a meme I made. I posted this before. But here's a repost anyway.

Anna Karenina -- The Compromisepill 

Eventually when you're pondering about marriage, you arrive at the compromisepill. However, this is a hard pill to swallow and I lowkey didn't really swallow it yet ngl. 

My cat Mictlan is a Russian Blue, and so I thought it would be cool to take a picture of a Russian creature with a Russian book!! Lowkey Tolstoy should've added more creatures. There were horses though. 

Now, this is 800 pages about a woman cheating on her husband. Interestingly, I actually hated two other classic novels that were about women cheating on their husbands. One was Main Street by Sinclair Lewis and the other was Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I think the reason why I didn't like those books is because I thought the women were dumb and hard to sympathize with, even though their husbands were such mediocre men. The husbands in both Main Street and Madame Bovary were doctors who had no time for their wives. They were also lowkey kinda uncultured and didn't read enough poetry. However, their wives were also mediocre and I can't say I liked them much. But Anna is different. I loved Anna, idk. She was cool af and I understand why the young women in the novel like Kitty are captivated by her, and the men too of course. Her husband Karenin is very similar to the hubsands in Main Street and Madame Bovary. That is to say he is extremely mid. Anna wants a passionate love, and so she cheats on him with Count Vronsky, a handsome charming guy who I imagine had a great jawline. However, Vronsky never truly does value her. He sort of treats having her as a status symbol. You also see elements of the classic demand-withdrawal cycle in their relationship. 

Anna Karenina's plot structure is similar to Middlemarch because it sort of has two storylines in one. There's the Anna-Vronsky storyline and the Levin-Kitty storyline. This is kind of like how Middlemarch has Dorothea-Casaubon and Lydgate-Rosamond. I actually wonder if Tolstoy read Eliot. He probably did. I know he liked Dickens. 

Anyway, Vronsky doesn't truly love Anna's soul. There are times when he seems to, like after Anna recovers from a nearly fatal illness, but he mostly just seems like a hotter version of Karenin. Anna realizes that maybe it wasn't worth it. Meanwhile, Levin turns to God instead of turning to other women when he is unhappy in his own marriage.

The novel shows Levin as a noble character while Anna tries to fulfill her own desires instead of turning to spirituality. 

However, the genius of the novel is probably in that even though Levin is endorsed as morally superior, Anna is the more likeable character by far. Her intensity and passion makes her so much easier to sympathize with and relate to than Levin.

So if you fully swallow the Compromisepill, you could end up like Levin. And he is an admirable guy when it comes to morality. 

But Anna is more based, remember that! At what cost will you swallow the Compromisepill?

Here's a pic I took of a page from the book. Anna and Vronsky are quarrelling in this chapter. And I just thought Tolstoy did a 10000 times better job of describing "the demand-withdrawal cycle" than psychologists do. Take that, psychologists. Your field isn't a real science and it can be done better by writers of literary fiction. The demand-withdrawal cycle usually has a woman feeling unappreciated and demanding more from a man who then withdraws because he doesn't like the criticism. It had me howling and screaming when it happened to Anna and Vronsky.

Now, we are almost at the end of this post. I just wanted to end with a poem about the Marriage Trilogy. I chose juvenile rhymes and simple words on purpose to make it sound more like the style of a person who wouldn't read the Marriage Trilogy for some irony. Anyway, here it is:

A Poem I wrote about the Marriage Trilogy 

Long conversations between Jude and Sue

on matters that changed their entire worldview,

Perhaps you'll never know what that's like,

Philosophy taking over the night

Casaubon made Dorothea feel like

he was the sea, and her mind was a pool

until Ladislaw showed her what it was like

to actually be loved for her soul,

But they'll never say you're like him

Maybe you're like Count Vronsky

so handsome he made Anna Karenina

cheat on her husband and ruin her life,

All she wanted was love, 

though Vronsky didn't know how to do that right,

But her husband was not much better 

so she never satisfied her desires

Jude loved Greek and Latin

a poor boy who became a stonemason

just so he could have books 

And Lydgate was a doctor

who truly had a passion

but I'm not sure you know what that's like

any better than his wife did

Maybe that's why you can't love

a person that well either,

Jude and Levin and Ladislaw

could do it better

I don't even think you see

your lover is ensouled,

Ladislaw thought Dorothea's

beauty 

was too much for a portrait,

just right for poetry,

It would capture more of

her mind, her voice,

They say their love is beautiful

and in this one short life

I can't see the point

of being with you if

it doesn't feel like what they have,

So it can't be right

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that's all, folks! I'll probably try to post something less lonelypilled next time.

This book will literally save your life if you're an aspiring polymath

Today I went to the library. 

I finished reading one of Erasmus's essays called Lingua. 

I reviewed 469 vocabulary flashcards in Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language). 

I worked on planning a lesson for the kid I'm tutoring. 

I found a book on statistics in the library. I learned some stats concepts from this book and practiced them.

I worked on some art as well (a realistic drawing of a cat). 

And I finished reading a self-help book for people who have many interests. It's called Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. This book is what I have come to talk to you about today. 

Middlemarch completer

i made this meme + this girl is right about everything

Erasmus's Folly is Jestermaxxing

This meme is original content made by yer girl ;)

What's up fam? We're going to get a little deep on this post lol. Sorry if it sounds a bit like traumadumping at first. But I promise it will get into some interesting analysis of old books later. I will talk a bit about Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, but the majority of this post will be about Erasmus's In Praise of Folly (1511). 

As someone in their twenties, I can not understand why society or the media tends to portray this as the most fun and desirable age. I do believe it is better than childhood or teenage years, simply because I feel more in control of my life now. Children's lives are entirely controlled by adults, which of course they kind of need to be for their safety. But it means they can not really pursue freewillmaxxing, for example by exploring interests, hobbies, beliefs, and friendships that their parents may not approve of. My favourite part of adulthood is getting to freewillmaxx and explore new ideas, sometimes reaching the conclusion that my parents were right about something and sometimes not. Getting to do stuff for myself without having to depend on others is also great, and of course the best part about being over 18 is that Discord mods leave you alone (if you know, you know). 

However, I simply can not accept the idea that this is supposed to be the BEST decade of your life. To me, that sounds crazy since you'll still have at least 40 years of your life left when you're 30 (and most likely more than that). The older you get, the safer you are from Discord mods too! Why do people act like their life ends at 30? I feel like a lot of historical figures I admire didn't even accomplish shit until they were older than 30, so I find this romanticization of youth completely bonkers. John Milton was in his 50s when he was writing Paradise Lost!!!! Why is everyone falling for the propaganda that 20s = best time in life???? I hated my childhood. And I hold the opinion that being in my 20s is better than being a child, and I also look forward to my 30s. And my 40s. Yes. I don't care if that sounds crazy. I AM EXCITED ABOUT GETTING OLDER.

People also romanticize the beauty of youth. But I think it takes a man or woman of culture and sophistication to appreciate mature beauty. It's literally like the difference between one of those AI generated anime-inspired images and like, the Sistine Chapel, but whatever. Just say you like flashiness and instant gratification. "Look how the images dance and flicker across the screen!!!!!"

Of course, every thought that I have ever had, that you have ever had, has already been philosophized about by some person from 100000 years ago. For example, I was thinking, "you know maybe if I lived in the 1600s I would have wanted to marry John Milton." Then I started reading Middlemarch (1871) by George Eliot today and guess what????? It says Dorothea "felt sure that she would have accepted the judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure..." so basically, she is just like me fr. 

So this got me thinking, was there anyone else before me who hated being young? I like tea and cats and books. I was literally born to be an old lady. My idea of fun is just old lady activities. There has got to be someone who feels like I do about how romanticizing youth is silly. 

There are passages in Meditations about being able to appreciate natural beauty even for things that are aged, mature, and overripe, without disregarding the beauty of youth as well. These come from Book III of Meditations:

"figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circumstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit."

"if a man should have a feeling and deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly one of those which follow by way of consequence which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure. And so he will see even the real gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than those which painters and sculptors show by imitation; and in an old woman and an old man he will be able to see a certain maturity and comeliness; and the attractive loveliness of young persons he will be able to look on with chaste eyes; and many such things will present themselves, not pleasing to every man, but to him only who has become truly familiar with nature and her works."

This is great, but the text that really made me feel less alone in my views was In Praise of Folly (1511) by Desiderius Erasmus. Folly is a female jester, but also a goddess, and is the allegorical personification of tomfoolery. The whole book is a speech she makes in praise of herself. She mocks the Stoic philosophers like Aurelius for not being silly. She makes fun of wisemen, philosophers, grammarians, theologians, lawyers, rhetoricians, etc. Her arguments are all exactly what you would expect anti-intellectuals to make, if anti-intellectuals were actually capable of sustaining and defending an argument over the course of a whole book and finding the coolest classical allusions to support themselves. And so Folly does romanticize youth, and she says that her followers get to be young forever. Erasmus was obviously what we would think of as a "wiseman," and the book appears to be a humorous roasting of himself in part. But knowing that the views expressed by Folly are often satire really helped me feel less alone in my views, because they are better defined against what Folly expresses if that makes sense. 

Folly was conceived out of wedlock by Plutus when he was in his youth with the beautiful nymph Neote, and she is really proud of this. She was nursed by Drunkenness and Stupidity. Her handmaidens are Flattery, Forgetfulness, Pleasure, Madness, Luxury, etc. 

^ I found this picture online, which has a quote from the book. But I really don't like that drawing. I want to draw an allegorical personification of Folly as a sexy female jester and make Erasmus proud. 

Folly on Aging 

Folly says if you follow her, you get to be young forever. If you become wise, you'll get wrinkles. Here is a quotation:

 "if mortals would refrain completely from any contact with wisdom and live their entire lives with me, there would not be any old age at all. Instead, they would enjoy perpetual youth and live happily ever after. You see, don’t you, how these grave and sober personages who devote themselves to philosophical studies or to serious and difficult tasks seem to enjoy hardly any youthful years at all; they grow old before their time because they are forever worrying and beating their brains out about knotty problems, so that their vital spirits gradually dry up, leaving them exhausted and juiceless, as it were."

Folly also talks about how gifted children are an absolute curse. The charm of children is supposed to be in their ignorance. 

"Aren’t we put off by the child who has the knowledge of a grown man? Don’t we avoid such precocious prodigies like the plague?" 

Folly claims that women are naturally sillier than men. They are less suited for intellectual pursuits. They like frivolous things. But Folly thinks this a good thing! She claims that this is also how women preserve their youthful soft skin, while men get rough skin from having to think too many thoughts. Women are meant to be the comic relief in men's lives.

 "by living with him she can season and sweeten the sourness of the masculine mind with her folly."

“Where do men get their rough features, coarse skin, bushy beards-all of them clearly signs of old age? Where but from the vice of prudence? Women, on the other hand, have soft cheeks, a high voice, a delicate and smooth complexion, so that they seem to preserve forever unchanged the marks of adolescence”

Now this raises the question, what does Folly think of women who don't like being silly and would rather be wise? Well just like with children who are wise beyond their age, she hates them. And she thinks Pallas, which is another name for Athena the goddess of wisdom, is a huge nerd. 

Over all, wise people are boring and annoying and they ruin everything, as we can see in this passage:

Bring a wiseman to a party: he will disrupt it either by his gloomy silence or his tedious cavils. Invite him to a dance: you would think it was ‘a camel dancing.’ Drag him along to a public festival: his face alone will be enough to put a damper on people’s gaiety— wise Cato will be forced to leave the theater because he cannot put off his supercilious airs. If he joins a conversation, everyone suddenly ‘clams up.’ If something has to be bought, if some contract has to be negotiated, in short, if any of those things must be done without which everyday life cannot be carried on, you would say this wiseman is more of a blockhead than a man. 

The whole book is definitely worth a read if you get a chance. Folly claims to be blurting out anything that comes to her mind, but she clearly knows how to deploy rhetorical strategies, and so she secretly partakes in and benefits from the learning that she tells others not to pursue. 

Some of you may be interested in Folly's criticism of theologians and ascetics in particular, in which case you would really like the later sections of this book that I have not covered. 

I found this book humorous, comforting, skillfully written, and over all just amazing and would definitely recommend it to people who like pondering about things. 

Alright fam, that's all for today!!!   

do techbros misunderstand Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? also I am still Ojibwemaxxing

I will be yapping about these books:

Hi everyone! So I realize that the title of this post might be a bit clickbaity and I don't actually want to bash anyone's efforts to engage with the classics. However, what made me want to write this post was the fact that I recently read a book called Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations by Richard Wagamese, and I could not help but be reminded of what is probably the most famous example of the “philosophical journal” style of book, which is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m a non-Indigenous learner of Anishinaabemowin, the Ojibwe language. I’ve written on this blog before about universal truths that are found across different storytelling traditions. For example, Basil Johnston’s retelling of the Ojibwe story of the wolverine reminds me an awful lot of my boy Satan from Milton’s Paradise Lost. For today though, I wanted to focus on how some people may misinterpret Stoic philosophy as being about isolating yourself, becoming hyperindependent, and avoiding relationships with others. I believe such ideas are erasing some of the nuances in Meditations and could be harmful. Aurelius does mention the important of community. So does Wagamese. In Embers, Wagamese draws from Anishinaabe worldview to remind us that all of creation is our community, so that includes creatures and plants.

Perhaps people who are huge fans of Meditations won’t like that I’m speaking of it alongside Embers. One is a timeless classic and one was written in the same century as us. However, Wagamese certainly draws from some very ancient teachings. And he seems to have been interested in making this wisdom accessible even to people who not know anything about Ojibwe culture. Aurelius was keeping a diary for the sake of his own self-improvement and did not intend for so many people to read it. Also, I understand why people who hate new age spirituality and self-help books might be reluctant to read “Embers.” Trust me, I hate that kinda stuff and I only read The Power of Now because my dad and my boyfriend like it. However, I enjoyed Embers. And I do not think an Ojibway writer writing about Anishinaabe teachings should be reduced to “new age.” Richard Wagamese isn’t a white woman.

Okay, lets pull up a banger from Meditations now. This is from Book 11, number viii. There are of course, many different translations of Meditations. But I am using this one on Wikisource because it is easy to access: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Meditations_of_the_Emperor_Marcus_Antoninus/Book_11

Here is the banger quotation. Notice especially the ending, where he talks about how you should value community but you shouldn’t lose yourself in it.

8. A branch cut off from the bough it belonged to cannot but be cut off also from the whole tree. Similarly a man, if severed from a single man, has fallen away from society as a whole. Now in the case of a branch, it is cut off by another agency, whereas man by his own act divides himself from his neighbour, when he hates him and turns from him, yet he does not realize that at the same time he has severed himself from the whole Commonwealth. Only there is this singular gift of Zeus who brought society together, that we are enabled to join again with the man we belong to, and again to become complements of the Whole. Yet, if it is often repeated, the effect of such separation is to make what separates difficult to unite and to restore. Generally speaking, too, the branch which originally grew with the tree and shared its transpiration, by remaining with it, is different from the branch which is engrafted again after being cut off, whatever gardeners may say. 'Grow together with them but do not share their doctrines.'

What do we make of this? Aurelius is not against forming relationships. He is against forming toxic, codependent attachments that would prevent you from thinking for yourself or having your own opinions.

A lot of what Meditations talks about is Logos or Reason, which is sort of like your inner god. It is an unshakeable part of you that should not be impacted by any life circumstances, however good or tragic they may be. You always have Reason even when you have nothing else. Guess what? Wagamese also speaks of having part of the Creator within him.

Lets pull up a banger from Embers. This is also a tree-related passage. It is about mast seeding, which is how trees use their roots to communicate with each other so that they all know that they should bear fruit at the same time. Pecan trees do this. This is what he says. Keep in mind that he wrote this stuff because these were thoughts that occurred to him during his morning meditations, so in a way it is sort of like Aurelius’s journal but less private:

“I’ve learned nuts are formed from symbiotic relationships between trees. They communicate through fungal networks in the soil. In a process called mast seeding, different species of trees communicate and come into fruit (the delivery of nuts) at the same time, ensuring their ongoing survival. Tree talk, tree people; as my own people say. These days I’m definitely a nut, learning to exist in unity, synchrony and harmony.”

Even trees have friends!!! And they talk to their frens. So you see, grindset advice that does not encourage you to form community or a support system is probably a bad idea.

Wagamese and Aurelius both suggest holding oneself to a very high standard while simultaneously having extreme compassion for others, and this is also how I personally want to live my life. By having very high standards for myself, but not for other people. I don’t want to judge others. If I am focusing on self-improovement, I would not have the time to do so.

That’s all for today’s chronic yapping post. Thanks for reading it!!

yer girl is still alive i was just schoolmaxxing + here are the 10 best books I read in 2025

what's up fam it's yer girl. I wanted to post this to give a life update so you know that I'm still alive. I managed to get out of the suburbs, which has always been my life goal. And I have been schoolmaxxing. I have been doing a lot of random stuff. For example, I wrote this article on a very obscure book I read. I am also considering starting a podcast soon. Sorry if you think podcasters are cringe, but I will be contributing to their population increase soon. 

I read 73 books in 2025. I wanted to make a list of the books I thought were the best in case y'all want bookmaxxing recommendations. I have chosen 10 of my favourite books and tried to cover different genres so that there's something for everyone here. 

1. The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson 

I actually read this whole trilogy this year and LOVED all three books, but I would also recommend this book as a standalone because it is quite beautiful and complete on its own. It's one of those fantasy books that doesn't involve any magic, but it involves extensive world-building. There are fictional countries with different languages, cultures, religions, governance systems, literary traditions, gender roles, etc. And Seth Dickinson has put so much effort into creating each one. It's so fun to immerse yourself in the geopolitics of this world. The protagonist is a brilliant savant from an island that has been colonized by an evil empire, but can she dismantle it by working within the system or is that a hopeless idea?

2. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt 

I had an obsession with Genesis this year, so I read Milton's Paradise Lost and a monograph about how the New England Puritans were influenced by the story of Adam and Eve called Inventing Eden by Zachary Hutchins. I gotta say I loved Greenblatt's book on how Adam and Eve went from having multiple interpretations to how it came to have a literal interpretation because of Augustine and Milton. Adam and Eve could have been allegorical figures, according to some Jewish commentators. They could have simply represented the reason and desire of a single person. However, Augustine interpreted Genesis literally and came up with the idea of Original Sin. Milton was influenced by this interpretation and it became the dominant one in our culture since then. Now we think of it as the only way to correctly interpret Adam and Eve's story. I would recommend reading the original story in Genesis before diving into this book because it's very short and you will see that it leaves a lot of room for asking questions. Greenblatt writes extensively about Augustine and Milton's personal lives and you will feel as if you know these people by the end of the book, and Milton's loneliness and marital problems will increase your appreciation of Adam and Eve's wholesome relationship in Paradise Lost before the fall and of Satan's loneliness and his jealousy at seeing Adam and Eve happy. Unforunately, I have not read Augustine's Confessions. But Greenblatt makes it sounds like he crashes out a lot in it so I mentally refer to it as Augustine's Crash Outs now and I will be reading it in 2026 to let y'all know what I think!!!!

3. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

I gotta warn y'all that this is considered one of the saddest novels ever written. I adored it and I think it is one of my favourite novels now, but my heart has also been absolutely destroyed. It criticizes education, marriage, gender roles, parenting, and religion. It was so controversial in 1895 that people burned copies of it. I don't wanna give spoilers, but this book turned me into a marriage abolitionist even though I've never even been remotely close to being one before (literally never throughout my life). If you want to read about how education keeps out some of the smartest people because of class discrimination, and about marriage is done more to avoid social stigma than because people love each other, and if you want to become absolutely doompilled and hopeless and depressed then I recommend this book. It was very beautifully written and I genuinely believe tragedy is the highest art form. Also I have another ultra sad book on my shelf right now, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and I will get to that in 2026. Pray for yer girl I will probably be languishing. 

4. The Language Warrior's Manifesto by Anton Treuer 

As I have mentioned on this blog before, I am a non-Indigenous learner of Anishinaabemowin. Ninanda-gikendaan ji-anishinaabemoyaan. Gaawiin anishinaabe ndaawsii. Aapiji niminwendaan o'ow mzin'igan. I have no doubt that Anishinaabemowin will have more speakers in the future, even though it is an endangered language right now. Treuer talks about how this can be done. He wants to move past simply making people memorize word lists in Indigenous language classes for learning things like animals, numbers, or colours. Instead, he wants speakers to be not only fluent but creative. He envisions a world where Anishinaabemowin children's books are not just translations of English stories or bilingual books for second language learners, instead they should be fully in Anishinaabemowin and have culturally-relevant messages. And of course he thinks there should be Anishinaabe literature available for all ages. He talks about his personal life and how this can not be separated from his language journey and I am sure you'll find this very moving and inspiring, especially how he aims to make sure that all his children are fluent speakers. 

Also just to be clear, I'm sure you'll love this book if you care about endangered language revitalization in general, not just for Anishinaabemowin. And if you don't, then it's even more important for you to read this. 

5. Imaginary Maps by Mahasweta Devi 

 Perhaps this is the most problematic book on this list, only because it talks about the Indigenous Adivasi communities of India and the author is not actually from these communities (I could not tell you which community the stories in this book would be the most applicable to as a major flaw of this book is that it homogenizes them!!!!) However, to defend this choice a little, I will say it does an excellent job of criticizing the Indian state, or perhaps the concept of a nation state in general. You can see that it is only able to survive through exploitation of Gond and Santal people and other such communities as most of India's electricity is generated on their land. Resources are extracted from communities that are not fairly compensated for them (Sounds just like Canada or Russia too). There is one story in here about a reporter who sees a pterodactyl in the jungle, and the pterodactyl is a metaphor for knowledge so ancient that he can not even be able to comprehend it, and of course this knowledge precedes the state. I will say this book gave me a lot to ponder about and that's why I think it should be on this list.

6. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance by Leah DeVun

The subtitle is extremely misleading as this book is actually about intersex people, not nonbinary people. But it was still incredible. I think having the phase where I was obsessed with Genesis was what drew me to this book, as it does talk about the interpretation of Adam as possessing characteristics of both sexes before Eve is separated from his body and they become two distinct people. Intersex characteristics are associated both with demons and angels in the Middle Ages. The theological discourse around them affected how real people were treated (most obviously when it came to nonconsensual surgery on intersex people). It is horrifying to think that these nonconsensual surgeries still continue all around the world. We have literally learned nothing and that's probably what most horrified me about this book even though I think it is a very important topic for the author to write about 

7. Shakespeare's Sonnets

I loved the experience of reading all 154 of these together rather than reading them as standalone poems, because some of them are like series of sonnets that relate to each other (the reproduction sonnets, the horse and rider sonnets, the fair youth sonnets, the dark lady sonnets, etc.). I literally cried over some of these. These were not the only sonnets I read this year, as I also read Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, but nothing can top Shakespeare's sonnets. I read Venus and Adonis a few years ago, and I have not read the Rape of Lucrece, but in 2026 I might make it a point to read it as I would like to read more of Shakespeare's poetry (and honestly Venus and Adonis is worth a re-read! I realllyyy liked it last time I read it). 

8. AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What it Can't, and How to Tell the Difference

Now I'm no technology understander, and I lowkey wish I lived in the 1500s sometimes. However, this book is pretty easy to understand even if you are medievalbrained. The authors are computer science professors but they try to make this accessible for people. They tell you why the existential threat of Artificial General Intelligence may actually be overhyped, and that the most dangerous thing about AI is what humans are going to do with it, or what humans with bad intentions and who have power are already doing with it. You will learn why artificial intelligence is terrible for trying to predict the future (whether a criminal will continue committing crimes, if a condition will develop into a more serious disease, if a student's performance will improve, etc.) You will also learn why humans should probably be involved in social media content moderation and it shouldn't just be left to AI to make those decisions as they do not understand human culture. I will certainly be reading more on AI in 2026, especially the ethics of it.

9. All the Horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie 

Just a gorgeous historical novella that's impossible to put down, and the kind of thing I hope I'll write someday as it's my dream to write historical fiction. Eyvind of Eyri does not believe that his early tenth-century world is very complicated, even as many of his fellow Icelanders convert to Christianity and forget the old ways. According to him, the world is simply composed of humans, animals, ghosts, and luck. I love how simple and straightforward he is as a character, and also how he believes farming is the most noble profession and his dream is to own a farm!! When the Khazar adventurer David presents Eyvind with the opportunity to travel across the known world, Eyvind sees many things he doesn’t understand, like the nameless a nameless white mare who's bewitched. The message seems to be that magic cuts across all cultures, but only Eyvind seems to be smart enought o see this even though he's so humble. 

10. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 

I read this because my based bigbrained chad sigma stoic boyfriend likes this book uwu. The idea of “Reason” being like your inner god and something that no one can disturb or take from you was very powerful. No matter what the circumstances are, you still have your reason. Before reading this, I had the mistaken notion of Stoics as isolating themselves from the world. I thought that in order to avoid being carried away by their emotions, they must avoid socializing or it would cause them to form attachments to people. But Marcus Aurelius actually preaches love, compassion, and community, as long as you don't form attachments that make you forget that you have Reason, or logos, or free will, purpose, an inner light... however you want to think about that. I should read more philosophy. Also, I swear he gives advice that sounds like my dad sometimes. And my dad studied Sanskrit. So I wonder if there's a school of thought in Indian philosophy that's actually very similar to Stoicism? Also I want to read Epictetus, as Marcus Aurelius admires him a lot and mentions him in this book. 

Honourable Mention: What the Chicken Knows by Sy Montgomery

And lets end off on something extremely silly, but lowkey kinda based. Yer girl had plans to start a chicken farm but that didn't pan out. Nevertheless, this book reminds me that I will never give up on my dream! If you're a hater, just know that I'm sure you'll be paying premium prices for organic eggs from my farm one day lmao. Anyway, chickens have a lot of instincts we don't understand like pecking aggressively at the sight of blood. They are also affectionate to their owners. Roosters are protective of their flocks and can warn others of danger. These are just some incredible facts about them. And I will continue reading about nature and creatures in 2026.

What is Snekcoatl going to read in 2026?????

• More fantasy because I loved the Masquerade trilogy!!! I'll be checking out some of R.F. Kuang's novels, as well as the Dune books and LOTR.
• More nineteenth-century fiction because I loved Jude the Obscure and Great Expectations! I would really like to read Dracula, as well as books by Austen and the Bronte sisters.
• More books by Anishinaabe authors because I liked Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Louise Erdrich will be next.
• More nonfiction books about India for tradmaxxing purposes. The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen sounds great, as does The Burning Forest: India's War in Bastar by Nandini Sundar.
• More Shakespeare of course!!!
• More philosophy, probably Plato's dialogues.
• More nonfiction about nature, creatures, and ecology. Give recs if you know about CREATURES, I don't really know where to start.
• More historical fiction. I also want to write more of it :)
• More nonfiction on AI such as AI Morality by David Edmonds and Brave New Words by Salman Khan

To all the bookmaxxers out there, whether you are a giganerd or just getting into reading, and whether you plan to read philosophy books or manga in 2026, I wish you the best of luck with your bookmaxxing goals!! Bye, fam!!!

I wish bell hooks and Robin Wall Kimmerer did a crossover episode to discuss the Windigo and greed

 What's up y'all? Recently, I had the pleasure of reading "All About Love: New Visions" by bell hooks and "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants" by Robin Wall Kimmerer. At first glance, the only thing that these books may seem to have in common is that grad students like reading them. But I actually see a lot of similarities in how bell hooks talks about consumerism and how Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about the Windigo. 

The Windigo is a creature that the Anishinaabe speak of that consumes human flesh. In pop culture, you may have seen Windigos appear in horror movies or games. But people who reduce the Windigo to "a sp00ky creature from Native American mythology!!!1!!" are missing the point of Windigo stories. They are cautionary tales. You see, the Windigo was once a human. It was consumed by insatiable greed. No matter what it consumed, it wasn't enough. Humans like this are at risk of "going Windigo." After that, they begin consuming human flesh. If you want to make an artistic rendition of a Windigo but give it contemporary significance, just draw a greedy CEO with a suit and a tie!

One of the essays in Braiding Sweetgrass is called "Windigo footprints." This is where Kimmerer gives the following description of Windigos:

"It is said that the Windigo will never enter the spirit world but will suffer the eternal pain of need, its essence a hunger that will never be sated. The more a Windigo eats, the more ravenous it becomes. It shrieks with its craving, its mind a torture of unmet want. Consumed by consumption, it lays waste to humankind."

This is why I love Robin Wall Kimmerer's writing style. So as you can see, the Windigo is at its core empty. He feels hollow, and there's nothing he can do about it. 

Now lets see what bell hooks writes about consumerism. I am going to share a quote that is in chapter 7 of "all about love," which is called "greed." Keep in mind that Kimmerer's book at its core is about respecting plants as if they are our elders and teachers, which requires a lot of humility to do so. bell hooks speaks of the importance of not giving up on love and using love to not only guide our relationships but political movements as well. She addresses rampant lovelessness in society while Kimmerer confronts the blatant disrespect of nature. And maybe these things are intertwined. 

Many children are brought up in loveless households and continue to be deprived of love as adults. When this happens, they are consumed by greed.

bell hooks writes:

"Intense spiritual and emotional lack in our lives is the perfect breeding ground for material greed and overconsumption. In a world without love the passion to connect can be replaced by the passion to possess. While emotional needs are difficult, and often impossible to satisfy, material desires are easier to fulfill."

This passage really makes me imagine the lovelessness a Windigo must feel. It almost makes you feel compassion or sympathy for the Windigo (while still wanting to stay away from it). 

Now, there are plenty of counterpoints to what bell hooks is saying. Are wealth fantasies always caused by feelings of emptiness or lovelessness? Perhaps not, but they certainly can be. bell hooks also talks about American consumerism in particular, and the same may not apply to other cultures. 

If someone from a Dalit community in India dreamed of owning a fancy car and eventually bought one after becoming wealthier (which is actually possible because caste discrimination and class discrimination are two separate issues in India), any criticism of this action would probably come from a very privileged person. Who are they to judge what a person from a disadvantaged background does to make themselves happier?

That being said, I do think lovelessness and perhaps a lack of passion, hobbies and interests can exacerbate material greed. And I still do think bell hooks is describing how Windigos are made, even if it may not be the only way. 

If you've read either bell hooks or Kimmerer or both or you're simply familiar with Windigo lore, what do you think? What is the contemporary significance of the Windigo in the face of the loneliness epidemic and environmental destruction?

fences

yer girl has finished reading Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, which is a book that i once asked a Discord eboy to buy for me and it is embarrassing how long it took for me to actually get to it, but i got through it pretty quickly when I did. It's a good thing this blog lets me yap about academic topics in a non-academic way lmao, like that time I shared my thoughts on Thomas More's Utopia: https://freyathefrypan.blogspot.com/2024/04/yer-girl-has-thoughts-on-utopia-by.html 

If I had to make everything I say sound like a conference presentation or essay I would go bonkers!!!!!

Anyway, Changes definitely makes me want to read more works of environmental history. Imagine more historical monographs that treated a land as an active participant in history rather than just the setting for it. Perhaps economic historians would argue that market forces determine the course of history or something, but the environment actually plays an even greater role and influences human culture. Cronon captures how nature and culture influence each other in this quote from pg 13 of Changes "Environment may initially shape the range of choices available to a people at a given moment, but then culture reshapes environment in responding to those choices. The reshaped environment presents a new set of possibilities for cultural production, thus setting up a new cycle of mutual determination." He also captures the essence of his methodology on pg 15 "Our project must be to locate a nature which is within rather than without history, for only by doing so can we find human communities which are inside rather than outside nature." 

Cronon talks about many fascinating things in this book that made me see society and nature differently. For example, about controlled burns of trees by Native tribes. These deliberate fires created conditions favourable to strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and other gatherable foods. And of course, it increased the growth of grass and therefore attracted deer in large numbers which could be hunted. Because the grassy areas were enlarged, it raised the herbivorous food supply and resulted in an increase of the deer and elk population. This in turn increased the population of lynxes and wolves.

This is mind-blowing, because it means Native hunters were not just depending on the bounty of nature, they had actually created the conditions for a food source that they were able to harvest. 

Europeans just thought the abundance of species in North America meant that they found an earthly paradise, virgin land and an untouched wilderness.

But this post is about fences.

I'm going to talk about the fence as a symbol, because Cronon touched on it briefly. 

You see, the English agricultural system mixed the raising of crops with the keeping of animals. This meant that they needed to separate the animals from the crops of the animals would eat the crops. They needed fences!!! So the fence became the most visible symbol of a land that Europeans thought had been "improved" by their settlement. The Puritan John Winthrop criticized the Natives because they did not enclose any land. 

I wanted to draw your attention to a passage from Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative. This is a pretty commonly read text especially in classes about early American literature. But in case you're not familiar with it, Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan woman who was held captive by the Wampanoag people during King Philip's War. This is an example of Rowlandson clinging to signs of English modification of the land for comfort. It's from the section of the narrative called "the seventh remove."

“As we went along, I saw a place where English cattle had been. That was comfort to me, such as it was. Quickly after that we came to an English path which so took with me that I thought I could have freely laid down and died” 

Traces of cattle and an English path were a great comfort to her, and something she clung to during her captivity. Imagine how excited she would have been by a fence.

By the way, this is shameless self promo, but you're also reading MY blog so I guess it doesn't matter. The essay that I wrote on Mary Rowlandson is one of my favourite pieces of academic writing I've ever done and I'm quite proud of it (it also got me into two PhD programs, waitlisted for one, and interviewed by three). If you wanna read it, here's the google drive link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iLfOi2TlilTt_0VlvW1be-Q6k0_2DnJG/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110475621005188424434&rtpof=true&sd=true 

I would like y'all to now ponder the modern meaning of fences. What about white picket fences in North American suburbs? What do they symbolize? 

And why for the love of God do we destroy the native vegetation of North America to make flat patches of grass, like lawns and golf courses, and then declare this an "improvement" and a comfort???

It's because our society has unfortunately inherited too much from the New England Puritans, including how we see nature. In the Puritan worldview, man is meant to serve God but nature is meant to serve man. 

This is why I am a suburb abolitionist. 

Yer girl has thoughts on "Utopia" by Thomas More

Hey fam. Recently, I wrote a paper where I compared agricultural policies in 19th century India and Canada (sounds boring as hell to most people, I know) but hear me out. The plains tribes were considered lazy and incapable of farming by Europeans. They were thought to be completely uninterested in agriculture. And it is true that they traditionally hunted bison, however, in the 1850s the bison were nearly extinct and they knew they would have to turn to farming to survive. But the Canadian government did not grant them suitable equipment to farm and forced them on reserves, often on land that was not suitable to farm. In 19th century Punjab, many tribes that traditionally herded cattle were deemed criminal tribes by the British (including the sansi and pakhiwara people) and they were forced to take up farming on agricultural settlements but of course there was not actually enough land to sustain the people in these camps. Anyway, it shouldn't be taken for granted that both Punjab and Saskatchewan are "breadbasket" regions now.

So what does this random info have to do with "Utopia" by Thomas More? Utopia was written in the 16th century long before any of that stuff happened. But there are many parts in the book that reflect the belief that land is not being used property if it is not being used for agriculture. Consequently, people who do not farm are considered backwards or savage. 

In the section titled "of their living and mutual conversation together,” the very cool traveller Raphael Hythloday who is big-brained and knows Ancient Greek tells us that each farm/family in Utopia can have a limited number of children. If you have more children than that, a neighouring farm with fewer children may adopt some. There are many cities in utopia, so if all the farms in a city are full, the next city can take them. And when all the cities are full, extremely bonkers stuff happens. I thought this was crazy. They will take over a nearby land and try to assimilate the people under their laws. Now read this: 

"But if the inhabitants of that land will not dwell with them to be ordered by their laws, then they drive them out of their bounds which they have limited and appointed out for themselves, and if they resist and rebel, then they make war against them.” 

They regard it as unjust that someone occupies land that they do not farm while others go hungry because they have no land to till, basically. 

"For they count this the most just cause of war, when any people holdeth a piece of ground void and vacant to no good or profitable use, keeping others from the use and possession it which of notwithstanding by the laws of nature ought thereof to be nourished and relieved.” 

That's bonkers right? Don't you guys think that’s bonkers? This is what some people may use as a moral justification for colonialism if they are thinking a little beyond the idea of "might makes right.” I don't think colonialism can be morally justified and I am very against its but I find it fascinating to study these kinds of arguments.

There is more. In the section called "Of warfare," hythloday gives us some reasons for when he thinks war is justified and based. These include defending yourself, defending your bros and liberating someone from a tyrant. But the utopians also recruit people from a different culture to be soldiers.  They do not think there is anything wrong with this. The people are called the Zapoletes. Here are some descriptions of them: 

• "they be hideous, savage and fierce, dwelling in the wild woods"

• "occupying no husbandry nor tillage of the ground.” 

• "given unto no goodness, but only to the breeding and bringing up of cattle. The most part of their living is by hunting and stealing” 

• “they be born only to war”

• "they maintain their life by seeking their death"

This literally sounds like how the British viewed the tribes of Punjab, down to thinking it was wrong for them to herd cattle instead of farm and thinking they were prone to stealing. 

All the points about utopian society are in the second book of utopia. The first is about problems in England. Hythloday complains about rich noblemen who take up so much land for their sheep that commoners are left with no land to farm. This is of course a theme that is revisited in the second book. 

The last thing I’m going to say even though I took way more notes and have way more stuff to yap about is that I still liked this book. I know I approached it with the aim of understanding ideologies that were used to justify colonialism (by the way, Raphael is fictional but it is said he sailed with Amerigo Vespucci!!!) but I do think it is important for people to read it for philosophical reasons and appreciate the good parts. I would be willing to hear a generous reading, and I also think it would be cool for someone to compare this to Plato’s republic. 

Also, I am going through a phase right now. it is basically an early modern Utopian phase. Cavendish's “the blazing world" or Francis bacon’s new Atlantis is probably next. Or montaigne’s of cannibals. I have read the Tempest already and I have been obsessed with Gonzalo's idea of the commonwealth. Stay tuned  for whatever happens to me as a result of this phase.