Will Michael Yuan make it through?

Changming (Michael) Yuan tells me that he might have trouble at the border crossing from Canada tomorrow to get down here for the reading at Hugo House. If he can't show up, what should I do? I could handle it all by myself. I could have the audience (the open mic people) read from the Chinese poetry books (in English translation) that I have.

What should a prince do when his nation is overrun by brigands? The Tao Te Ching tells him to meditate on plum blossoms. Here is a way to relieve stress. Here is a way to calm down one's mind. When the world is more than one mind, out of the ordinary things happen and we do not know reality as readily as before.

"At the edge of precision," said one ancient Chinese philosopher, "the universe quavers."

I see this as one step in my goal as a literary theorist. I am after all a part of the Chinese Diaspora. I am an existential instantiation of the said Chinese poetic diaspora.

I hope they at the US side of the Canadian border let Michael through.

Goal Statement of LNT

My most pressing need is to narrow my focus and pick a small topic to do my goal setting.

My overall concern is the function of literature and how that's going to help me as a person and to help others to see the world in a different light, in the hope that we can all benefit from this exercise.

Like the fact that I am wearing a pacemaker to regulate my heart beat, my range of topics and degrees of coverage must be within a manageable limit.

My long-range goal is to teach online an introductory course in philosophy, poetry writing, or a literary theory course.

That then gives me an idea of what courses to choose from and the manner that I must pursue this goal.

First, this goal is based on things I already know quite a bit about. The manner to pursue this teaching goal is then to develop concrete plans as to when and how I can take courses to further this goal and to help me find the format that is suitable for me to teach the subjects.