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I've really enjoyed the simplicity and beauty of this site on write.as, but I simply got too curious about GatsbyJS and Netlify.

I got Gatsby working in Docker, then tried following a tutorial which was quite helpful. I got most of the way through it, and it is quite cool how responsive both the development process and the site itself are.

However I was having trouble getting the images to load properly. I'll spend some more time on it this week or next, or maybe I'll start with an easier project that doesn't require the generation of pages.

Otherwise have a friend visiting so writing apart from the novel is on hold.

Aristotle makes many points with which I agree. He thinks that the good life (eudaimonia, sometimes badly translated as “happiness,” but better rendered as “flourishing”) is not a state but a continuous process, requiring constant practice not just to enact but even to understand. He believes that virtue consists in habits and principles, and not in isolated actions. He thinks this process is hard to attain to, and that most people will not reach it. He is an empiricist, as I am, and he bases much of his discourse on his keen observations of how humans actually behave. His ability to discern patterns in behaviour is probably his greatest strength. His description of the mean of moderation is particularly well-argued, and not as obvious as it sounded when I learned about it in high school.

However I disagree with him on many points. First, I think it is too simplistic to say that each action has a single end, and that the ultimate end of all actions is eudaimonia. It is useful to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as he does to describe the relation of things like health and wealth to happiness, but I don't agree that people pursue health or wealth as intermediate ends, with the true end being eudaimonia.

I believe most actions are motivated by a variety of factors, which need not necessarily be known to those enacting them. People in general are not particularly good at knowing their own reasons for acting, and probably never (or virtually never) think things through in the kind of logical way that he prescribes. They do strive, of course, and give some thought to objectives, but I don't think it's common to consider why one strives.

Nor do I agree that such an exercise is necessary for morality. Aristotle argues that an action cannot be virtuous unless it is deliberate, with knowledge of what is being done, and further requires that the action is taken because it is a virtuous action. I think I more-or-less disagree with all three requirements. It might not make sense to have a virtuous action that is accidental, unknowing, and done for the wrong reasons, but I think it is possible to behave virtuously without any deliberation whatsoever, which seems to be opposed to Aristotle's view.

Basically I don't think deliberation necessarily leads to good actions. Aristotle often advocates the contemplation of the greatest good. If by this he means thinking rationally about the good, as he seems to, then I vehemently disagree that this has any effect on morality. If by contemplation Aristotle means meditation, or something along those lines, then I do think that's required for the cultivation of virtue. But meditation does not require reason, and may in some cases be opposed to it. (On the other hand, some rational understanding of the goals of meditation could be helpful—but I think this may vary. I've found that reason is useful for understanding the fruits of meditation, but it does not lead to their acquisition, and certainly not in the absence of practice.)

Aristotle seems to realise this on some level, saying that clever men can be wicked, but he continues to mandate reason as part of virtue. To me it seems clear that reason can be used to support any and all behaviour, virtuous and vicious alike. Nor are the right motivations required for an action to be good. It is perfectly possible to do the right action for the wrong reason, or, which is perhaps more likely, for no reason, i.e., with no altruism aforethought at all, which does not diminish its altruism. (In that sense it seems I'm a consequentialist, although I'm not quite arguing that consequences are the only thing that matter—just that premeditation is not a prerequisite for virtuous action.) I believe it is possible to behave morally without ever thinking about ethics in the systematic way that he advises.

Morality, in my view, basically requires meditation and practice. Virtue is not, as he suggests, a precondition either for contemplation/meditation or for the practice of virtue. You can meditate or cultivate the right actions without first being virtuous, and they will be effective even if you do them for some other reason than seeking virtue. In fact it is probably necessary to do some of this before virtue can arise at all. Good habits (ethos) are, as Aristotle argues, definitely required.

I might also agree that reason/contemplation is required for eudaimonia if he means that the use of the mind is a part of flourishing, just as the use of the body is. My dispute is not with his argument that contemplation is pleasurable and important; just that it is not a necessary condition for virtue.

I also think his way of dissecting the world into categories is probably counterproductive, because it risks dogmatism of the kind that his empiricism ought to avoid.

I dislike his attempt to make morals appear like mathematics. It is appealing, prima facie, to argue, as he does, that reasoning can be done about morals even if it can't be as precise as mathematics. But this line seems to imply there will be some bedrock premises on which the reasoning rests, when it is actually circular. E.g., he argues that a man cannot attain virtue without practical wisdom, but neither can he gain practical wisdom without virtue.

That's fine—there are many paradoxes in life. And perhaps he is observing that these things tend to arise in tandem. But he never explicitly acknowledges the many chicken-and-egg problems that he raises. In the end, I think focusing on the correct practices and ways of thinking (as the Stoics and Buddhists do) is more helpful than expecting a series of syllogisms to lead to the right actions.

I agree with him that practical wisdom (phronesis) should be distinguished from philosophic knowledge (sophia) and from technical knnowledge (techne). But the Buddhists are better empiricists and more practical on this point, explicitly explaining how to cultivate this kind of wisdom. The Buddha's claims seem more testable and less dogmatic than Aristotle's.

Overall I think he's a profound observer of human actions, with no small amount of insight. His emphasis on the contextual nature of most ethics is also welcome. But his extreme focus on reason is counterproductive, and at the end of the day the Ethics seem to me more descriptive of the problems of ethics than prescriptive of solutions thereto.

Back in London I've had interviews this week, which has been hard since I'm physically exhausted from all the hiking. But the process has been interesting, and a nice counterpoint to the fiction I've been working on.

An interest in tech has been a general trend, probably in response to the extent to which I've saturated myself with literature and philosophy in the last year. I may soon move off write.as and onto static hosting using GatsbyJS which I've become interested in. I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile I'm reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Nietzsche's “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” and this weekend will re-read von Neumann's The Computer and the Brain (which is mind-blowing). In their own ways, each of these works align exactly with an aspect of what I've been thinking about in the past year. I'd summarise those questions as: What is the good life? What are the limits of perception? And is human experience itself discrete or continuous?

What I mean is that this weekend we were married, and I have yet to catch up, mentally, or, as is my wont, in writing, with all that has happened. The wedding itself was beautiful, perfect in every way except for the absence of my family, to be rectified by future convening.

There was also a bit too much faff just after the ceremony, but before the photographer was satisfied. That will not be memorable, however. What we will remember is the mercifully spartan ceremony, the intimate, joyous reception, the impromptu tearjerking speeches. These, along with the beautiful faces, the intelligent conversation, the energetic dancing, and the exuberant after-party, were all a perfect embodiment of what we love about each other, and what we love about our friends. That our disparate friends, some now too rarely seen, got to meet each other, was deeply fulfilling for us.

To have had it go off without a hitch, with less than a month of planning, has been a lesson in what's important in life. It is also a testament to my wife's (and mother-in-law's) considerable abilities under pressure. All three of us were terrified during the day, and all three of us were thrilled by the evening by just what a success it was.

I feel now, two days later, like I could sleep for weeks after all the excitement, but tomorrow I will try to write more about what the first moments of this beatific union felt like, while they are still fresh.

On the plane to Phoenix I watched—and wrote about—the 1954 and 2018 versions of A Star Is Born, but I may have left it too long to motivate me to write it, to want to type up my views. Maybe I’ll try to see the 1937 and 1976 ones and then write a comprehensive post. The Cukor (1954) version is less earnest and more self-aware, it feels like, about the extent to which both the industry and the audience are culpable in such cases.

Tonight we‘ll watch Brazil, which I‘ve not seen in a decade. I‘m looking forward to it.

Phoenix, in particular Scottsdale, is more interesting than I'd expected. What its sculpture lacks in diversity of subjects it more than makes up for in variations in treatment. We found the art shops interesting, and the restaurants nice, if a little anodyne.

Taliesin West, where Frank Lloyd Wright set up shop to avoid winter and pneumonia in Wisconsin, has become a tiny (~30 student) architecture university. It is a place that is a true statement of vision. It is a place constructed according to one man's principles, and a place that continues to allow this man, now dead, to display the many aspects of his mastery over the elements, and the elements of his art, which was domestic architecture. He rarely relented on wishing the place to be constructed of local materials, to blend into the local landscape, though he did compromise and allow windows, eventually, in concession to his third wife's entreaties, to keep out the dust and desert wildlife. (Previously all the buildings had been open to the elements.) The students must build their own shelters to attend the university. Particularly impressive is the cabaret, in imitation of what he had seen in Weimar Berlin. Any picture is bound to distort it, and perhaps these are worse than most, but they're still worth a look.

After that we went, on the tourguide's advice, to see the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, designed in 1929 by one of Wright's students, Albert Chase McArthur. Wright consulted for some time on the hotel, and it reminded me of Ennis House in Los Angeles, which I had not realised was also designed by Wright. The hotel is impressive but understated in a way, with the low ceilings which Wright liked. (Being 5'6” or so, as well as a spendthrift, he said that any space about 6' was wasted material.) Most presidents since Hoover have stayed there, as did Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, Marilyn Monroe, and so on. It made me wonder whether the other cast members from The Misfits had been there as well, in those tragic early '60s. The staff was kind, showing us a bar where, during Prohibition, a signal from the opulent Aztec Room could alert the bartenders, who could rotate the bar around to show bookshelves. Something about its Native American influence reminded me of The Shining. It also evidently was where Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas”, and the Tequila Sunrise cocktail was invented.

Otherwise Phoenix is clean, there are fewer homeless than either Los Angeles or London, and in general it seems like a good life, perhaps not so different from Orange County. The weather was mild while I was here, 20–30° C mostly, and of course sunny, though it did rain a bit on Friday night.

The main reason for my being here, to surprise my parents, went swimmingly, they were surprised and very happy, as was I. It was well worth the jetlag and disruption that long travel often entails.

I'm in a strange place socially. I'm drinking little, from concern for a liver damaged by disease, treatment thereof, or just by a lifetime of irresponsibility. I'm trying to be more attentive to the circumstances and plights of others, yet usually this backfires, as, in the absence of alcohol, I want nothing so much as solitude. Most interactions appear as distractions, even as I wish to be a more inquisitive friend, I forget to question what it is I really wish for. I wish to be left alone, though when I'm alone I'm just as unhappy. Not dissatisfied by a desire for sociability, but by my own inability to progress as much as I'd like, to make tangible progress towards what is important. In other words I'm miserable to be around.

A job looms. I shall probably have to work again soon. If that happens, I hope that the change in circumstance will allow me to construct a more suitable routine, that is to say more ascetic, from which I neither deviate nor desire to. The reality is likely to be starker.

The notice period is twenty-eight days. We're to be married in thirty-three. The registrar found this delinquency amusing. The process was strange, two parts quiz and one part thoroughly British bureaucracy. My proof of address was summarily rejected, which necessitated emailing and printing a PDF in order to placate a boorish and maddened mandarin. In the interview itself, my partner ascribed to me a profession from which I do not yet make money, while I struggled to pronounce her patronymic. We at least got each others' birthdays right, just, and nationalities, though I sort of got my own wrong.

In other words it was something like our relationship: amusing, unlikely, haphazard, unconventional. And at the same time beautiful in our own attitude towards even the most important parts of life.

If you're reading this and it's the first you've heard, don't despair, we've only really told people we've seen in person. She takes a somewhat spartan attitude, desirous of symbolism over any ancillary adornment. My attitude of one is complicity in our own dear domesticity, an unknown but promising world, and a kindred kind of kindness that is yet beyond my ken.