Delight Springs

Friday, July 15, 2016

Cambridge

Our virtual course continues with today's excursion to Bertrand Russell's Cambridge. “Every morning Bertie would go for an hour’s walk by himself, composing and thinking out his work for that day. He would then come back and write for the rest of the morning, smoothly, easily and without a single correction.”


Ludwig Wittgenstein showed up on Russell's doorstep one day to challenge his quest for mathematical certainty.

Russell eventually learned to live with uncertainty, dispel loneliness, and conquer happiness. The daily walks didn't hurt.


It's the anniversary, btw, of an important date in the history of the other Cambridge: Emerson's Harvard Divinity School Address in 1838, which also challenged conventional wisdom and smug certainties. He called walking gymnastics for the mind. "In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life..." Our mortal breath is every bit as divine as any prophet's. If you don't believe it, just walk.

6:15 am/5:44, 72/92/68, 8:03

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