Gar Lipow requested: > Please be a little less Zen.
Although the characterization of my style as 'zen' is not 100% technically accurate, there is an affinity between how I write and zen. I CAN write in a linear style. Sometimes I have to because I make my living as a writer. But when I was out walking the dog this evening I wondered why much that I want to communicate seemingly "can't" be communicated linearly. It occured to me that the function of the clear, concise exposition is to make what is being read forgetable. People desire clear messages so they can read them, digest them and forget about them all in one gulp. Get the gist, put it in a drawer and shut the drawer. Then when I got home I glanced at the abstract to a paper on the marriage of time and identity: Kant, Benjamin and the nation-state and my eye fell on this line, "The progressive notion of time is seen as dangerous by Benjamin, since it generates forgetfulness and inner impoverishment of the self." Justin said the other day "People are motivated by the outrage of felt injustice." Well, what if they forget? What if they live in a temporal frame that has become a machine for forgetting? What if the news they get today has been designed to make them forget the news they got yesterday? "Make it clear so I can forget it." I suppose I could do that. I've read lots of books on clear exposition. I've done and taught "plain language editing". Watch September 11th carefully. There will be an orgy of "remembrance" calibrated to make people forget. Please be a little more Zen. Tom Walker 604 254 0470
