Robert Frost

Frost was perhaps a little defensive about his education.

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“If you mean what might be called the legitimate education I have received when you speak of ‘training’ and ‘line of study,’ I hope that the quality of my poem would seem to account for far more of this than I have really had. I am only graduated of a public high school. Besides this, a while ago, I was at Dartmouth College for a few months until recalled by necessity. But this inflexible ambition trains us best, and to love poetry is to study it.”

-- Robert Frost

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[Source: Jay Parini, “Robert Frost: A Life”]

Kay

Kay is here. It is her first visit since Lorie's stay-over. I have enjoyed a couple of weeks without having to work around guests, which I suppose has spoiled me, because I am feeling a real stress-spike with Kay's arrival. I trust I will adjust and survive. This is Pop's reason for living, or at least for living with some sense of satisfaction - a reason to get out of bed and see another day, helping to keep him vital in his tender, vulnerable seventies. And, in truth, they continue to be very considerate toward me, as the big room has practically become my main bedroom, complete with large-screen smart-TV.

Leibniz

Here is some of Leibniz's argument and logic that leads to Voltaire's mocking of Pangloss's idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds.

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"You have known the world only since the day before yesterday, you see scarce farther than your nose, and you carp at the world. Wait until you know more of the world and consider therein especially the parts which present a complete whole (as do organic bodies); and you will find there a contrivance and a beauty transcending all imagination. Let us thence draw conclusions as to the wisdom and the goodness of the author of things, even in things that we know not. We find in the universe some things which are not pleasing to us; but let us be aware that it is not made for us alone. It is nevertheless made for us if we are wise: it will serve us if we use it for our service; we shall be happy in it if we wish to be."

-- Leibniz, "Theodicy"

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Leibniz had more faith than Voltaire did, or than what we have.