Hussle for Husserl

Greetings, blog.
Due to technical difficulties, my access to this page has been restricted. I will not blame the recent dearth of posts on this. It is due only to my inwardness and fixation on the aforementioned author, McLuhan. I have spent the better part of every day since that last post reading his book. The fever finally broke today on page 181. Perhaps this is a page many have trouble with. The earlier troubles in "engaging" were readily resolved almost immediately upon further perusal, only to be replaced by greater complexities. Reading McLuhan has now become an issue of memory. There's so much text that it's difficult to keep ready what has been said. There's a processing lag of about one chapter. Much like Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, the significance of the text only dawns with the keys that are found later. It's a circle with multiple entry points, none of which are perfect. I know for sure that the alphabet is very important. It's the cause of lineal thinking. It's one of the extensions of man that caused a revolution of thought.

What would McLuhan have thought about the internet? He was almost hinting at it in 1963 with his accelerated communications and the convergence of things toward information. The internet is the perfect culmination of his theory of an abstracted, unified space. McLuhan seems more and more to be a mystic. This bothers me. I don't like to deal with mysticism in my media studies. But those who leave the mystical out of their writing are pedantic documenters and sorry scribes, so I'll take what I get. This idea of media as the extensions of man's existing faculties - the senses, reason, rationality - now seems perfectly natural to me and I wonder that it wasn't obvious. It's naturalness gives it the ring of genius. I no longer doubt that this book has massive merit.

The book continues to astound me, and McLuhan astounds me with the range of his reference. I'm inspired to begin my preparation for grad studies in earnest. Tomorrow I will travel to Kyoto with Veronica and choose a book of history. I don't know nearly enough history to make a proper attack on modern communication theory. I should get a book on communication theory. I might buy one on philosophy, whether modern or ancient. Philosophy is always a difficult read for me, although the Republic was dull but straightforward. I didn't finish it. I've got to get a book of twentieth century philosophy, although I always think I should read the full publication of a work to understand it properly. I could use the survey as a jumping-off point. It is apparent to me how little educated I am and how much reading I have ahead of me.