Well

There’s a beginning for you. I’m a writer, philosopher and teacher. I once gently reprimanded a philosophy class for their informally written essays. “You can’t write philosophy as if you were nattering to the examiner over the garden fence” I said. That’s not an appropriate way of writing for the task in hand. The next set of essays I collected in were well researched, well argued and, you guessed it, they all began with “Well.” There is a time to be formal.

So…

Fashions change and now though fewer thinkers, broadcaster and writers begin with “well”, this is the new para-punctuation. I can accommodate its overuse as a conjunction which has relevance to a previous point made, but how absurd to be asked what your recent research in genetics has revealed or what is the present political climate in the Ukraine and you begin your authoritative response with “So… “? Beginnings are important and unless we learn from the mistakes others make we’ll always have to go back and tidy up our own.
Still… better to begin than procrastinate.

As you can see I love writing. I am aware of the power of little things. Here I am responding to the odd question above. “What’s up?”. I thought it was asking me if I had troubles to report. Well, (sic) am still managing that most difficult of balancing acts that a creative/procreative person can be challenged with. How do you follow your muse and manage your family commitments? I have muddled through this before. How do you love your children, and your partner whilst keeping alive your sense of personhood and developing the talents and abilities you’ve been blessed with or worked hard to acquire?

Minutes…

Sometimes you don’t. They get put on hold. But don’t give them up… remind yourself, remind yourself. And try not to lose heart.

Sometimes the smile gets a little fixed

Slowly and surely a balance can be found however and the secret is another small thing. How can you procreate and carry on being creative? Or how can you have children and stop the lovely blighters absorbing you into themselves? Snatch minutes and make something of them. In doing so you’ll continue to make something of yourself.

Minute by minute even parents can make something of themselves