Arlo,
I really appreciate you sharing this word, its meaning and your
feelings about the way it functions in this forum. I have learned to
care for all of you, even Ham. - It pleases me to think of you
meeting friends for a Brewski. And I like the word, Brewski. It's
playful. I bet you are too.
Marsha
At 04:31 PM 8/21/2008, you wrote:
[Marsha]
What I wrote was personal. True.
[Arlo]
Phatic. This is what we in linguistics call expressions that serve
social functions, rather than strictly conveying information. And it
is not "fluff" or "filler" or "unimportant". Phatic expressions
perform the important task of social cohesion. For how many hours a
week we spend reading, writing and thinking about posts to the list,
it is little wonder to me that we also invest a part of our personal
selves here. I am happy to hear about walkabouts, mentions of kids,
family, life, work, play, bars, etc. because they are the color to
an otherwise empty coloring book of characters. Granted, if it were
all social, perhaps we'd find a more compatible forum interacting
with people "like us", rather than bucking heads over the elusivity
of "consciousness". Indeed, it is what likely all drew us into
Pirsig's narrative, which was not just apersonal philosophy but a
deeply personal narration that made his philosophy "real", grounded
it in the daily activity of motorcycle repair, boozing and
rotisserie assembly. I imagine that everyone on this list has other
listies they'd call "friend", people they would miss (not just
intellectually) if they left the forum. And this is a good thing,
not a bad thing. In this wonderful electronic world of ours no one
is forced to read everything, we can use simple but sophisticated
search programs to highlight posts that contain certain words or
phrases, or even less technological measures such as passing over
posts by people we've learned don't really pull us in or reading
every post by a particular contributor. Bottom line... there is no
imbalance here that I see, share what you wish to share, most
receive it in good spirit, others can ignore it (or learn to).
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Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
.
.
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