Heat Stroke Diary #34876: The Summer of 2022 and My Oscillating Fan is on High Alert

In this post, written during the 2022 heat wave, I wonder if I have ever done anything special. And hope that I have.

Collage of the Author Created During the Heatwave of 2022.

I’m sweating more gallons of perspiration than the amount of water H.M.S. Titanic took when she sunk. I’ve been half-baked, sun-kissed, and afflicted with the worst case of swamp ass this side of the East River. But thank you, @holderandolder, for the postcard. Invigorating! @elledeewhy We are going to walk again soon. @dyspraxic_nightmare You inspire me daily even though I think Hailey Mills did a better @disney Parent Trap than @lindsaylohan. I still haven’t caved and installed a window unit in my living space. I’m reading many different texts, including Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. It’s my second read of the novel, and this time, I’m paying attention to the love it gives New York City. I just finished the part when the narrator seduces Sybil In the hopes of finding more about the brotherhood. I noticed how many sickening times Sybil calls the narrator “beautiful.” By sheer happy stance, @moma has a new exhibit visualizing the spaces and locales of the novel.

I can’t wait to see it. Even when I was poorer than I am now, I found time to visit museums. I download an app that calculates monetary worth. I am worth six-hundred dollars, according to my net worth calculator. My heirs, please spend it wisely. Still, I’m hoping I’ll follow Socrates, who said his most considerable success in life wasn’t amassing wealth, and he pissed off some Athenians. I realized today I’ve never done anything special in life. But let me tell you — you’d never believe I can make a perfect bowl of beef & pork noodles. Stay well, Homo Sapiens!

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Why I like Fifth Century Thinkers like Socrates and Confucius

Confucius and Socrates Represent a Renaissance of Thought

I was trained to begin with Socrates. But what about Confucius standing next to Socrates? Confucius was Socrates’s contemporary. "They probably never met," you say. A Queens taxi cab driver told me their meeting was possible – how could there have been such a confluence of ideas in both East and West without either Socrates or Confucius never having met? The fifth century before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was a renaissance of thought. It was a time of emerging thought, of dynamic ideas – that would forever change the course of human history.

Poem: Thrasymachus Blushing

thrasymachus blushing
blushing belies betrayal
betrayal of the body 
the body belied

so says socrates
not blushing
but catching thrasymachus in a blush

a crucial catch of the passage
says the professor
a critical juncture blushing
is

for in it
socrates 
calls thrasymachus out

for is it not true
that one cannot
forfeit an argument?
even if one knows forfeiting is the right thing to do
our body forfeits for us
turning rouge
in a crowd of philosophers
vying for truth

to get the answer wrong is an admission of failure
of not getting it

and we want to get it

so we plow on regardless
but our body -
it sees our flaw
and quickens -
blood flows more fully 
and all can see our less than comfortable
feeling of resting with a certain unjustified truth

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Greig Roselli ® 2012

Quotation: Socrates On Perplexing Others (And His Own Perplexity)

Socrates with folks in Athens in Raphael's painting "The School of Athens"

A quote from Socrates on perplexing others . . .

For I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself. 

οὐ γὰρ εὐπορῶν αὐτὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ποιῶ ἀπορεῖν, ἀλλὰ παντὸς μᾶλλον αὐτὸς ἀπορῶν οὕτως καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ποιῶ ἀπορεῖν.

Socrates, 5th century B.C.

from the Meno by Plato (section 80c-d)
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