I used to purchase notebooks for journaling but had a similar hangup to some other posts on this thread. I just though that it was a hard sell to continually have to shell out a bunch of cash for the sexy notebooks when all the materials for a passable alternative are essentially free if you can tap into the waste of a typical pre-pandemic office space with a comercial printer. (For a while there was a thing that would happen with the network printer where it would suddenly begin to print gibberish, usually only one or two lines per page, uncontrollably for reams and reams of paper. This was the source of my first roll your own notebook pages.)
At some point I heard about the Midori system and then realized that if you had a reusable Traveler's notebook you could print the style of paper that you wanted to use, fold it, and have an A5 sized folio (?) insert that you could staple with a specialized stapler to make the paper inserts.
I think that it is best to approach the practice of philosophy and the output of that practice as really meaningful, but not that important. I believe that there is an inverse relationship between the tangible life benefits of studying philosophy and the weight of meaning that you require from that study. And, I hereby do attest to the real good that the study of philosophy can render in one's everyday life! But, it seems to me that this benefit is greater during times where I am comfortable treating it as a great way to train the mind and spirit for the real world. Rather than mistake the training for the actual fight of living. To maintain a good life contending with all the whorling complexity and dizzying vastness of the universe is where the work done on the sparing grounds pays its dividends. Or, as it were, doesn't
This is actually what I came here to say! It is great book that I have given to many people. I also recommend Anathem, by Neal Stephenson which is a romp of a novel shot through with philosophy.
I feel your pain. We have a 5 year old and twin 3 year olds. Our 5 year old will be entering K this fall too. Though, who knows what exactly that will look like. Right now the school which our 5 year old attends is having 45 min zoom calls with each pre-school class twice a week. It's not the same as having a whole day of activities and socializing but I respect what they have managed to do with the constraints that they are dealing with. Outside of that we've been reading to them a lot. But, there is a special force of nature weight that the twins somehow wield. And that is just tough. The way we've tried to spin that is to attempt to inspire them by feeding whatever their latent interests seem to be at the moment. And get that momentum in a productive direction. It does not always work.
Thought that the discussion of the mechanism by which the virus generates the shortness of breath symptom was particularly interesting. As well as the R0 discussion and COVID19s plot in relationship to other diseases.
I think that some of the science adjacent podcasts which provide in depth show note and literature analysis for people willing to pay 10/15 bucks a month are a step in that direction.
