January 1–The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin- Benjamin Franklin (1791)

Linked here (still testing the best way to do this)
And a playlist of 1791 music I listened to while I read/wrote. I never thought of Mozart and Franklin as contemporaries. Always thought Wolfie was older.

Summary: Ben Franklin's 13 Virtues. Also a little about founding a library and his daily schedule.

Commentary: I'm happy to be starting with Franklin. I've always enjoyed his writing, and he's by far my favorite founding father. Is it strange to have a favorite founding father?

    As expected of a "classics" volume, this is a section I've read many times over the years in various courses. We spent quite a bit of time on Franklin in American Lit I, which was one of the courses that sparked my change from Chemistry to English in undergrad. I enjoy Franklin's list of virtues: Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity and Humility. I've often thought of writing my own, but never have.

    Overall, I think Franklin's philosophy on life is broadly applicable and hard to argue with. He's not so dogmatic as a lot of others, but not vague to the point of being pointless either. "Here's some advice on how to be a good person. Your life will be better if you're a good person, and so will everyone else's," sits well with me. He's clearly got a sense of humor, and wrote some other pieces about enjoying older women and chess, so he had his fun as well.

    In a way, my familiarity with and love for this section make this hard to write. I don't think any of you want to read a 10 page essay of my gushing over Franklin, and it's hard to come up with anything that hasn't been said a million times before. I put a fair number of comments in the doc, so I guess I'll write about them a little here, with the relevant excerpts.

 Pg 78: Having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.

Ben Franklin was whining about the public wasting their time on frivolities 200 years ago. Some things never change. 

Pg 80:  the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man 

Yes. Please. As close to a universal religious morality as we can manage. Much better than the Golden Rule.

He spends a fair amount of time talking about religion. It's mostly standard Deism stuff. He talks about how he thinks even the worst religion is still mostly good. I want that to be true, but I don't think it is. Maybe true for 90% or so? Like the lizard people polling anecdote. Or maybe religion has gotten worse over the years. Or Ben Franklin was just wrong here. I love the guy, but he's not perfect.

I identified with the anecdote on page 82 about a preacher who gave a sermon on a section of the Bible he agreed with, but didn't like the sermon. I remember once going to my grandparents' church and listening to a gospel section that (seemed to) support coexisting with other religions, and then getting 20 minutes on how everyone had to convert. Blah.

Pg 83: 4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

    Ben Franklin sounds like a Games Workshop writer if they hired better ones. 

   

    On the same page, he talks about cutting off unnecessary action. I think this is really key in modern life (although maybe no different from back then). There's so much pointless crap in our lives that just sucks time. Scrolling feeds endlessly (and then complaining nothing good is them), watching a show we've seen 12 times (but don't actually pay any attention to), etc. But he seemed to enjoy a good time as much as any of us. How do we define necessary and unnecessary? If you never do anything you enjoy, you'll go crazy. Is enjoyment enough to make something necessary? How much enjoyment is necessary for something to be necessary (first time I spelled that right!) Is an 8/10 movie ok, but not a 5/10 one? Or do you have to justify it with some moral purpose, education, etc.?

    Maybe I'll revisit this once I've done a few more and have a better idea of what I actually want to put in these entries.