Dreamlife

  In this dream I’m in Zammito’s class. At some point I raise my
hand and give a basic statement of the problem of determinism. After he
endorses it, I mention that for Stevens, the imagination is a defense
against determinism. I am disappointed that he doesn’t seem to know
this well enough to confirm it. (This isn’t something I’d say in waking
life. In Stevens, the imagination resists a lot of things that could
fall under the heading of necessity, but the problem of determinism
itself isn’t something he addresses in anything I’ve read.)
  The overall feel of this dream is extremely vitalizing. I no
longer get to hear people speak with the depth and power of Zammito;
for the most part, I’m around “professionals”, a species related to him
as an orangutan is related to a human. In the dream, I re-experience
something that was part of an important awakening in my youth. It’s a
reminder of the substrate that’s there for me to tap and mine in my work.