Philosophy Class Refresher Course

Essay
Image by Pixabay

What is it in human makeup that makes us go looking for the answer we want? When did confirmation bias become the norm, rather than something to guard against? Despite my best intentions, I find myself reading Amazon reviews and if I’m iffy on a purchase I read the 3-star reviews and talk myself into not buying the book or dog toy or widget. Is it a symptom of not wanting to spend the money? Or something more insidious?

I really don’t want to turn in my philosophy degree over this so my promise to myself is that I will try to be less judgmental. I will try not to pre-interpret or favor the information that I want to see. I don’t expect this to be easy. As we grow older bias seems to calcify. You know the answer to calcification, clean liberally with vinegar. I can be both liberal, and vinegary. Accepting and rejecting. I just need to temper things with a spoonful of sugary substance. Like tolerance for other viewpoints.

Back in the Stone Age when I was a philosophy major, I thrived on different ideas and contrasting viewpoints. I devoured books on subjects I knew nothing about. My philosophy professor would whap me on the head with a rolled up thesis if he knew I wasn’t giving things a fair chance to state their case.

I’ve given up on reading the news for the most part. It is so polarized; it’s easy to fall into old patterns of reading only journalists whose viewpoints I agree with. I think it has to do with our society’s sports complex. We must be winners or associate with winners at all times, or there is doubt about our alpha status. (Man/Womanhood?) My side always has winning arguments. Or so it seems.

What do you do when faced with confirmation bias? I’m open to alternatives or ideas. My natural tendency is to burrow into my introvert cave and not come out to play but the way things are going these days, it seems cowardly not to have an opinion, express it, and back it up with facts. Even in the face of hostility. Can I do it?

Can you?

New Gyroscope Review for July

Gyroscope Review
“A Day at the Beach”
by Constance Brewer
Whiteline Woodblock print
11 x 12.5 inches
Stonehenge paper
Daniel Smith watercolors

The summer issue of Gyroscope Review is out! A perfect lazy-summer-day read. You can pick up a copy on Amazon. Please leave us a review after you’ve read through the awesome work by our summer poets.

Submissions for the Fall Issue open today also. Last fall’s Crone Issue was so well-received that Gyroscope Review has decided to do it again.

The Crone Power Issue.

This time, there will not be regular submissions alongside the themed submissions. All submissions must be dedicated to the theme of what it is to identify as a woman over the age of 50 – the power, the satisfaction, the intricacies of being a woman over 50 in today’s society.

Women poets over 50 remain an underrepresented group and we are here to say that must change. Those who identify as Women over 50, we want to hear from you. This is your issue.

( We will return to regular poetry submissions for our Winter 2020 issue. )

June Road Trip

Photo Essay
Clouds in the Big Horn Mountains close enough to touch.
Welcome to Thermopolis.
Thermopolis hot springs. Yes I had to touch.
A return trip to soak is in order.
Wind River Canyon waterfall hidden in a crevice.
Wind River fishing below the Boysen Reservoir Dam.
Red Canyon, the camera doesn’t do it justice.
Oregon Trail ruts. I swear they’re there. I just wasn’t tall enough to photograph them over the sagebrush.
Storm coming in over the Rockies.
Historical gold mine at South Pass.

Digging Weeds from the Story Garden

Essay / Writing
Window in wall

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where my story is?

There I was, skipping merrily down the path, sun shining, the birds maniacally tweeting, and my brand new sneakers soft and bouncy. The path ended abruptly. I smacked face first into a brick wall, bending my nose 20 degrees out of joint. Where did this brick wall come from, you ask? Why, I put it there myself. 2/3rds of the way through the Newest Fantasy Novel, my little happy boat ‘o progress sank like a concrete mafia block with my characters tied to the sides.

I was stuck.

And not even at a hard part. I was stuck on something that I had written in the rough draft that sounded fine at the time, but now needed tweaking. My tweaker wasn’t working. I made four attempts at cleaning/scrubbing/spackling over the problem area. Nothing took. Me being me, I went back to the beginning of the novel and read it all again, 35 chapters. Along the way I went Oh. Hmm. I didn’t realize I did that. Wow, so that’s where that section derails.

I found my lost thread hidden several chapters back from the problem. I gave it a yank and it flopped out of the novel to hit me in the face like a wet fish. Here, dummy, this is where you need to be to get unstuck up the creek. I had been trying to write past the end point of the issue. Right there, in my problem paragraph, was the end of the chapter. I was just too caught up in making it conflict-y, lean and spare that I failed to take the idea to its logical conclusion. So I went back to the inciting thread, expanded that part a bit more, so that what comes later makes more sense. I expanded problem paragraph past its anorexic roots, and it worked. The paragraph was happy, I was happy. All is right in my imaginary world. Onward!

Moral of my story, it works for novels, and for poems. Lately I’ve been editing my poems with a chainsaw, when maybe some pruning shears would have been better. Seed, water, let it grow, then prune. Or if necessary, add fertilizer and let it expand. Within reason, because man, if you add too much, or the wrong kind, that stuff can stink. Don’t let your writing stink. Be a good gardener. Oh, and planting a flower or two along the way for later enjoyment never hurts.

How is YOUR spring writing going?

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