Intro: Travels & Truancy

Of books, places, sojourns

Welcome back after the break. Today is Intro Monday Tuesday, offering a short preview of what’s to come here at Pose Ponder over the next three few weeks. Pose Ponder publishes daily on weekdays, 3 weeks on, 1 week off.

First, my apologies for coming back into your inbox a day later than intended. I was traveling back from Florida after a weekend visit with my 92yo father. He’s doing pretty well! I had thought to write a quick note from my sardine seat en route and post from the Dallas airport on layover, but some inflight conversation with a delightful young woman trying to figure out her educational trajectory intervened, plus I got to spend time with my youngest daughter, as we traveled together part of the way. The person in front of me gets top focus!

Truancy will undoubtedly continue over the next month, since my husband and I have a real vacation(!) lined up starting next week, and then I’m off to Asia with my oldest daughter to inspect the family compound in the Philippines. We then detour over to Vietnam for a first-time visit. I am not going to be visiting South Korea on this trip, my go-to in Asia. As always, travel will be 100% educational, and I’ll have things to share, but I can’t anticipate what it will be in advance.

Speaking of go-to travel destinations, what are yours? Alongside your personal canon of books, where are your canonical Places on earth?

It needn’t be anywhere exotic. Don’t we choose to live, if possible, in our most special place? Please share.

My big project besides writing is the Sojourners community of practice dedicated to lifelong learners on a mission. It’s slowly ramping up to a very soft launch. I’m adapting Pondercraft techne to be available to all serious readers, writers, travelers, and “TLCs” (teachers, leaders, coaches). If this sounds intriguing, you can put your name on the list.

Finally, my intensive class on Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition has finished. I am left slightly exhausted and perplexed, but also with a much greater understanding of her thought. In this book, Arendt has thought what we are doing (literally, our human activity) like no other before or since. Thank you,

Samantha Rose Hill

for leading the 20 or so intrepid souls who took the journey with you.¹

I’ll leave you with this quote from the book. It might become the epigraph for the Sojourners community:

The common world is what we enter when we are born and what we leave behind when we die. It transcends our lifespan into past and future alike; it was there before we came and will outlast our brief sojourn in it. It is what we have in common not only with those who live with us, but also with those who were here before and with those who will come after us.

Source: Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, section 7 on “The Public Realm: The Common,” p. 55

“Until soon,” as Sam says.

Northland Resort Hotel, Manapla, North Negros Occidental, Philippines

1. For upcoming courses, including more from Sam, check out fall offerings from the Brooklyn Institute. Caution: if you want to avoid temptation, do not sign up for BISR’s email list.