Wanting to Do Better
“You need to let me edit your posts.” Julie is right. I read what I think I wrote and she sees what I actually wrote – “typo, typo, subject and verb agreement, spelling, . . . “. She makes her point like a high school English teach with a red pen.
Julie identifies only the tip of the problem. Sometimes I have the desire to rewrite an old blog entry and do more than correct the obvious spelling and grammatical errors. I want to take the mediocre and turn it into something alive and beautiful.
Paul of Random Thoughts asks the question “So why do we seem to have a mandate to create?” I began to think and posed for myself the question “why do we seem to have a mandate to recreate – to improve, to excel, to make the good better”? (Perhaps creation and recreation are indistinguishable and we have one question.)
I could pledge myself to better creations but Paul rocks that boat. In an earlier post, “The basis of toughness”, Paul addresses diversity: “Diversity makes communities tough and resilient, and more productive. Don’t forget, communities come in all sizes. They exist in molecules, soil, plants and people.”
Thought provoking! Am I a community? To be tough and survive I need diversity in my life – time for physical exercise, time to sit and just be and do nothing, time to learn new skills, time to interact with others and with nature, time for a multitude of things. There’s part of the problem of mediocrity – not enough time.
Our society pressures us to specialize – choose a major and a career. Others may see me as a “software developer” but I see myself as a carpenter, an electrician, a farmer, a mechanic, a researcher in sustainability, a sociologist and psychologist studying marriage and relationships. I see myself as a community of skills and interests.
If I expend my limited time and effort on so many subjects then I have time to create mediocre articles but I don’t have time to recreate them as something better. I'm pulled in two directions. I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none. One possible solution is to join a larger community but, unfortunately, utopias don't exists.
Sorry, this is as good as it gets for now.
Tonight, Julie will point out my typos and I appreciate that. I’m part of a community of two that makes for mediocre writing but a wonderful life.
Julie identifies only the tip of the problem. Sometimes I have the desire to rewrite an old blog entry and do more than correct the obvious spelling and grammatical errors. I want to take the mediocre and turn it into something alive and beautiful.
Paul of Random Thoughts asks the question “So why do we seem to have a mandate to create?” I began to think and posed for myself the question “why do we seem to have a mandate to recreate – to improve, to excel, to make the good better”? (Perhaps creation and recreation are indistinguishable and we have one question.)
I could pledge myself to better creations but Paul rocks that boat. In an earlier post, “The basis of toughness”, Paul addresses diversity: “Diversity makes communities tough and resilient, and more productive. Don’t forget, communities come in all sizes. They exist in molecules, soil, plants and people.”
Thought provoking! Am I a community? To be tough and survive I need diversity in my life – time for physical exercise, time to sit and just be and do nothing, time to learn new skills, time to interact with others and with nature, time for a multitude of things. There’s part of the problem of mediocrity – not enough time.
Our society pressures us to specialize – choose a major and a career. Others may see me as a “software developer” but I see myself as a carpenter, an electrician, a farmer, a mechanic, a researcher in sustainability, a sociologist and psychologist studying marriage and relationships. I see myself as a community of skills and interests.
If I expend my limited time and effort on so many subjects then I have time to create mediocre articles but I don’t have time to recreate them as something better. I'm pulled in two directions. I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none. One possible solution is to join a larger community but, unfortunately, utopias don't exists.
Sorry, this is as good as it gets for now.
Tonight, Julie will point out my typos and I appreciate that. I’m part of a community of two that makes for mediocre writing but a wonderful life.
posted by Paul at 2:37 PM
2 Comments:
In many cases "better" is very subjective. We can loose the beauty when we try to make it better.
The person that is their job has a very narrow, and probably lonely, existence.
Best one appreciate a beach rather than worry himself about the perfection of one grain of sand.
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