This post of Aniket's made me think about why I don't write a lot any more. For a bit more than two years now, I have been twelve thousand miles away from the delightful, cosy little city I was born in. Working, laughing, and falling into twin extremes of joy and sorrow in a place halfway 'round the world which is unbearably muggy for four months of the year, and freezing cold for the rest. (In fairness, fall in Michigan is beautiful, I'm not exactly doing it justice. Nonetheless.)
When a lot of new vistas open up to you, there is a certain kind of apprehension about writing about your experiences. There is a story I remember reading as a child; that when Huygens first saw that Saturn's rings, unattached to the planet but still somehow floating around it; he was pretty terrified. He didn't think of it as a triumph of discovery, but wrote it down in a notebook in a couplet in Latin or something. I have never bothered to check on this story - it's delightful even if it is untrue, and makes for good dinner table conversation. (Incidentally, "smart" phones destroy these anecdotal soundbites, but that is a topic I shall touch upon another time). So anyway, I am but a kind of Huygens - trying to make a bit of sense of things which I realise I have little idea about.
The more you learn, the less you write. Or do you? Is it better to rust away while growing wise under the patina of the years, or is it more meaningful to polish up your writing, put your thoughts on paper, "get it out", as I remember an article by Churchill in the Reader's Digest saying? I think I might be practicing a bit more of the latter henceforth. Just not enough to get boring.
When a lot of new vistas open up to you, there is a certain kind of apprehension about writing about your experiences. There is a story I remember reading as a child; that when Huygens first saw that Saturn's rings, unattached to the planet but still somehow floating around it; he was pretty terrified. He didn't think of it as a triumph of discovery, but wrote it down in a notebook in a couplet in Latin or something. I have never bothered to check on this story - it's delightful even if it is untrue, and makes for good dinner table conversation. (Incidentally, "smart" phones destroy these anecdotal soundbites, but that is a topic I shall touch upon another time). So anyway, I am but a kind of Huygens - trying to make a bit of sense of things which I realise I have little idea about.
The more you learn, the less you write. Or do you? Is it better to rust away while growing wise under the patina of the years, or is it more meaningful to polish up your writing, put your thoughts on paper, "get it out", as I remember an article by Churchill in the Reader's Digest saying? I think I might be practicing a bit more of the latter henceforth. Just not enough to get boring.
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Linux users these days
Speaking of which, while browsing the ubuntu forums the other day to resolve a kernel panic issue, I came upon a gem of a post from someone that went something like,
"I really hate how they wasted time teaching us LOGO at high school when they could have been teaching us useful skills like using Word and Excel"
I can only hope it was a troll looking for a reaction. Otherwise, we're well and truly doomed in 2012.
