> Travis Edmunds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >From: Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>[Travis asked]
> > > Do you really believe that, or are you just
> > >being witty?
>
> >Yes, I actually do believe that
>
> Forgive me for prying, but why exactly do you
> "believe"? Is there any one
> thing in particular, that perhaps can be
> articulated?
<smile> I can't remember the thread, but there was a
discussion on this question not too terribly long
ago...perhaps last summer? I'll try to find it (maybe
someone else can recall the thread?), but it might be
a while (a lot's going on).
But the short answer is 'a sense of the numinous' (not
my words - Doug's? Bob's? Robert's? - but I liked them
enough to appropriate them). I've been through a
seriously-doubting phase, a frightened-questioning
phase, and the return to a sense-of-connectedness,
among others. No 'on the road to Damascus'
experience, if that's something you were asking.
<snip>
> On a serious note (and please *note* that I'm not
> being defensive) I have a
> question. Do you think one has to be confident, if
> not a little cocky, in
> order to maximise the effects of words at times? And
> in turn, do you think
> that arrogance 'comes with the job' so to speak? For
> we all here are writers are we not?
I hadn't thought of it in those terms, more along the
lines of "as a self-selected group, we're a bit
arrogant -- but entitled to it" {how's *that* for
arrogant!?}. But we _are_ all writers, at least of
sorts, and I think appreciative of the beauty and the
power of language & the written word to move as well
as inform us.
<snip>
> So, has time changed you? Have you changed with
> time? Has time given you the
> time to gain more experience, more wisdom, and thus
> to see things in a different light?
Yes. Experience was the real transforming factor. I
come from a fairly conventional and
good-solid-foundation upbringing, with quite firm -
even authoritarian - underpinnings (firstborn, army
officer's daughter, Lutheran), yet because of
nation-wide travel and the necessity of getting along
with people from such varied backgrounds, tolerance
was learned at an early age. Inherent curiosity and
natural empathy encouraged me to challenge
previously-held positions on various topics --
eventually. ;)
> That things change, I have no doubt. But the
> implication of an almost
> Universal conglomeration of...insight...that occurs
> only with an
> accumulation of years collected on this planet, is
> something that I have to
> reject. Perhaps though, there is indeed something
> that I am missing, and
> which can only be gained by suffering the fires of
> time.
Well, I think it's more experience than time; I've
certainly met middle-aged+ folks who've never
travelled out of their state of birth, and have
neither curiosity nor tolerance for Otherness (to get
on-topic!), and probably hadn't had a new thought in
months or even years... <self-conscious arrogant
head-toss, followed by amused grin>
Interestingly, while I have on the whole become more
sympathetic and tolerant of others' POVs as I mature,
I also have lost much of the need for others'
approval, which has lead me to become more outspoken,
and to be paradoxically more intolerant of those who
IMO are wasting my time.
<dry> As recently demonstrated.
Debbi
who very much misses those talking-until-false-dawn
impassioned discussions as a teen and tween...of
course, staying awake until dawn now takes a much
higher toll physically... <creak, creak, creak ;} >
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