zak and i got in a very long and involved conversation about race and culture in singapore, sparked off by an alfian bin sa'at essay, about the displacement of malay history in singapore, which got my blood up but i mustn't start an entry on it....not yet! i'll be good and until i finish my readings and do some latin i won't write. in the meantime though, zak sent me this quote, which i appreciate greatly.



"It is therefore, a great source of virtue for the practised mind to learn, bit by bit, first to change about in visible and transitory things, so that afterwards it may be able to leave them behind altogether. The person who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign place. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong person has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his."


-- Hugo of St Victor, a twelfth-century monk from Saxony, cited by Erich Auerbach as a model for anyone wishing to transcend the restraints of imperial or national or provincial limits.