[Morning Freewrite]
I am awaking early in the morning.  Pre sunrise.  I think this is a change
for the better in me.  I'm also more energetic these days.  I wonder if this
is all due to the hiking or if it's the St. John's Wort or if it's living in
this winter climeate (I love cold weather!)

So many of my friends who moved to New York City are thinking of moving to
San Francisco.  I'm not sure why.  I think they don't like winter.  I know
that I would never consider moving t=from New York to San Fran.  I might
consider never moving to New York in the first place, though.  This away
from city life suits me well -- I don't really like to do the things that
cities offer.  Except dance.  But only when I know someone to go dancing
with.

I suppose I could dance here if I wanted to and knew the people.

I look into the light of a moon or the dawn's glow and I wonder why I'm
still in the house when I could be out hiking.  I look into the cloudy sky
and wonder why I want to go.  There is a certain pull.  Is it the pull of
freedom?  Or is it the pull of travelling?  Both are experienced when
hiking.

I've checked out a book of Emerson's essays and have started reading.  I
want to learn about Transcendentalists and their thoughts; I might as well
start with the second most known, yes?  But who after Emerson?  Thoreau is
something I want to save for the trail.  Walking, In the Maine Woods, and
Cape Cod, I think.  Some collection of shorter essays.  I wished I'd had
Thoreau with me last year... But the only thing commonly found are big
volumes of Walden+ ....

My sister said a teacher told her Emily Dickenson was a Transcendentalist
because she was morbid.  Are transcendentalists morbid?  I don't think so
yet.  Nothing I remember implies that morbidity is a central aspect of their
thoughts at all.  Emily Dickinson did have a certain streak of darkeness...
but I don't know if I would call her morbid either.  There's not really a
fascination with death that I can remember.  Not a bright eyed innocense
either.  An acceptance.  C'est la vie.  Yes.  Exactly that.

Teachers these days are not as versed in the important things as I remember.
The important things beign to get their students to think and then not
interefere with them.  Too much is learning not enough is thinking.
Learning is a springboard for thinking.  You need to learn in order to learn
patterns and metaphors for future thought, have a common base to talk with
other people about (biblical references, historical references, etc rely on
a person identifying the underlying references when they run across them in
a new context,) and when you are stuck you need to find an interesting
element that someone else wrote to begin thinking in new ways.  To be able
to turn a problem over you either have to scome up with a brand new idea or
you need to combine someone else's old idea with a new setting.
(Creation or synthesis)

[End morning freewrite]