wow, Eva!
thanx for the stats.
how many people never post, do you know?
i wonder how many of the people who posted one message never felt
responded to?
i have sometimes felt like my postings fell into a black hole and were
never seen again.
i posted more messages in my early participation in xmca when i believed
that i was communicating with listeners who shared a common goal (although
now i realize that i was pretty fuzzy on just what that goal was).
currently my stance is more one of thinking out loud, less expectation
that anyone (any real one person that i know) is out there listening than
i used to have. the voices that i hear on this list are mostly disembodied
(the exceptions being those few i have met f2f or have communicated with
in other settings) and so i tend to think of them as threads of thought or
ideas rather than personalities. some of those voices i perceive as
yelling and i cover my ears because its too painful otherwise, but mostly
i only have the faintest, most general sense of who the person speaking
might be.
maybe i am responding to you, Eva, because i do feel like you are really
there,
really being someone i know beyond a disembodied voice on xmca
there being some place i can imagine as cozy as a kitchen or cafe.
i think people communicate for a multitude of reasons
-with others
-to others
-to express themselves
-to express ideas
-to test their ideas (or themselves)
-to prove something (or someone) right or wrong
-to expand their understanding of others (the world) or themselves
-to win
-to learn
-to live
all of the above (at various times),
kathie
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Words are the thunders of the mind.
Words are the refinement of the flesh.
Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments---
we just manage it---
sweet and electric, words flow from the brain
and out the gate of the mouth.
We make books of them, out of hesitations and grammar.
We are slow, and choosy.
This is the world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Oliver - The Leaf and the
Cloud
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Katherine_Goff@ceo.cudenver.edu
http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~katherine_goff/index.html
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