I am home. I’m doing laundry, and upon finishing this post, I am going to take a long shower. I still have two states left, Alaska and Hawaii, but I will use this intervening time to transition into and introduce another project. I want to explain in depth my literature of the world project.
Literature of the World
So, I have myriad interests. It’s frustrating sometimes. It’s frustrating because I have never been able to focus on one topic long enough to be able to gain any in depth understanding of it. I won’t elaborate much on my experience with school here. I have written about that before. Suffice it say, I think school, public or private, is a marvelous institution, vital to a thriving society. I have known amazing teachers who have gone above and beyond to help me. I have learned a lot from my experience in college, although you wouldn’t know it from a look at my transcript.
I want to make it clear here and now that I am not building up higher education to simply forsake it by ushering in a statement that “college isn’t for everybody.” That statement might be true, but I feel it is often times a scapegoat phrase for those less sincere about their education. I have future plans that involve college, plans I will not expound upon here.
That said, my current goal is to engage in an intensive personal project that I have laid out in detail, if only in my head at this moment.
I am beginning to undertake a project that involves reading literature of the world. Why literature in general, and not focus solely on, say, physics, or anthropology, or English? I am very interested in all of those topics, along with any other topic you could mention. To put it in one sentence: I undertake a literature project because it envelops all fields that are immediately concerned with humanity, by necessity, for the written word is the medium which conveys and transmits the knowledge of any professional, philosopher, theologian, scientist, and other human endeavors all together.
I am going to start with what has been understood to be the earliest forms of written language. That is, Cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Sanskrit and other Indian Literature, and ancient Chinese. From there I will begin Latin, Greek, and other like works, and so on.
I do this because, yes, I am interested in all of this, but, more fully I am concerned with many several conflicting world views, of which, if I, on the tail end of this project convince no one of anything other than what they already believe, will be wholly satisfied in the extent amount of information that I have acquired for myself.
If you were to ask me how old the Earth is, I would say that it is around 4.5 billion years old, which is the most currently accepted age attested to by the scientific community. However, certain Christians, hold a staunch belief that it is, indeed only many thousand years old. I simply, at this time cannot begin to believe the world is this young. That said, I want to intimately know why it is that these conflicting views exist. There are surface answers that many casually toss around, but the surface is only good for concealing grander realities that remain hidden under its guise.
The age of the Earth is only one example that I am concerned with. There are endless conflicting points of view concerned with very difficult questions, and I am, as flowing water, fundamentally compelled to find the deepest resting point of where I can quietly, in a sound environment contemplate those mysteries.
I admit that there are some problems starting with Sumerian literature and ancient Egyptian writings. I said that I would address different fields as they came into literary view on a chronological timeline. However, beginning with ancient writings forces me to address fields that have already been implemented in the discovery and interpretation processes of these works of literature, such as archaeology, linguistics, and so forth.
Addressing this, I will therefore, for the sake of the project, hold a few things to be assumed true, and suspend my critical evaluation of these fields until I ultimately get to them in their own time. This has led me to expand the nature of this project, of which I am not opposed, and its expansion will be addressed shortly. I will also juxtapose a few counter assumptions alongside each other to gain ever greater insights to what is and what might actually be true. Below I will explain my assumptions, along with the overarching process of this whole thing.
I have split this project into four tentative sections: Bronze to Iron Age Literature, Antiquity, Medieval, and pertinent writings that post-date the 15th century. I then, have allowed three phases of which I will explain here.
The first phase will simply be a casual reading of these works. I will also casually write my thoughts on each of them and note any things I deem important. Phase two will be more in-depth. I will revisit all of these works with a more critical eye, keeping note of my previous writings along with other historical content and commentaries, and then do a thorough, and truly academic write-up on each piece of literature, building along the way a body of knowledge that might lead to the demystifying of many convoluted topics.
Phase three I have left optional. It will only be implemented if I feel something of great importance needs to be brought forth to the general public. Phase three will consist of me writing a book, and or, a personal commentary on whatever subject I feel necessary.
As I said, I will assume a few things at first. For the sake of being thorough and to offer greater insights into this endeavor, I will assume through phase one that the dates and translations of the ancient literature is accurate. Upon beginning phase two, I will have a greater understanding of dating methods and languages, and translation processes to than dismiss those assumptions to make my own evaluations.
Likewise, I will also create three parallel timelines. The first timeline will indicated the academically accepted dates of all of the major people and events throughout history. The second timeline will address the more controversial dates that other people, organizations, and religions have posited as the true dates. And finally, the third timeline will be my personal timeline where I will allow my own thoughts to place people and events wherever I choose in order to visually stimulate the understanding in hopes that further insight might be gained. This final timeline will ultimately reflect my beliefs after the time and effort has been made to thoroughly investigate the people and events of most interest.
I am also going to assume that any and all characters that I come across are based on actual beings that did indeed exist at one point. I will do this to help in understanding how it is that we determine who are historical figures as opposed to mythical figures, as opposed to biblical figures and god figures.
Phase one will really only be my thoughts on what I am reading, nothing too in depth. I will, shortly, share more information concerning my timelines and the works that I am reading.
Just to be clear, unless I feel so inclined, I won’t typically share these posts to Facebook as I did with the Travel Log. And I can’t guarantee a consistent posting time. A part of this project is to allow myself a systematic process to learn all that I want to learn without losing my progress, as I would if I were enrolled in a college course, should I be so inclined to pursue other interests. I am under no delusion that this will be an endeavor that will resolve quickly. This Literature or the World project, for all I know, could be the genesis of a lifelong pursuit of knowledge.