Dragaera

Authors and their produce

Fri Dec 6 15:05:47 PST 2002

> 
> From: Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org>
> Date: 2002/12/06 Fri PM 05:56:34 EST
> To: dragaera at dragaera.info
> Subject: Re: Authors and their produce
> 
> On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 05:36:51PM -0500, Ken Padgett <kpadgett1 at cox.net> wrote:
> > To the left, after the Author has spent some months or years 
> > (or decades in the case of some Historians)toiling over his 
> > manuscript, that sweet fruit is consumed in mere hours, leaving 
> > the Reader with (if I may mix the metaphor) an unquenchable 
> > thirst for more. How does this delicate calculus of 
> > satisfaction  of a job well done against the thunderous and 
> > immediate calls for the next work balance in the Author's mind? 
> > Perhaps if the Author would deign to comment, I would cease to 
> > wonder and move to, if not knowledge, at least cessation of 
> > wondering.
> 
> As that worthy Tazendra once expressed, in somewhat different 
> words, and let me not quail from mentioning the understanding 
> that the difference in words may in fact reflect a difference of 
> meaning, but if so such difference is not intended as criticism 
> or misattribution, wondering is a sign of intelligence, and we 
> should never stop wondering; with that understanding I confess 
> that your desire for a cessation of wondering is incomprehensible 
> to me, and furthermore suggests a disturbing tendency perhaps 
> towards self-effacing or even self-denigration, whereas I feel I 
> must assure you that it is a good thing, a desirable and noble 
> thing, to wonder the plains of the mind as the body wanders the 
> plains of the earth, and indeed such wonderings and wanderings 
> are necessary in order to achieve that even more noble goal of 
> /finding/; yet having found, we must still wander, lest others 
> wander in search of the intelligence we have, in ceasing to 
> wonder, perhaps lost along the way.
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)
> Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt
> Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp
> Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp
> 
Ah, I feel suitably chastened, yet I must stand fast in my urge to cease wondering. Allow me, though, to clarify this desire, as precision is a quality deeply to be desired (unless one put too fine a point on it). I wish to cease wondering about the Author's feelings toward his creation. Is he satisfied by the excellence of his creation, or crestfallen that the Reader, with the ingratitude of the glutton toward his empty plate, can only call for more. If feel certain that I will not cease to wonder entirely. Indeed, one can imagine that the Author's response would only serve to open broad new vistas of the mind for wondering.

Ken