You know, the divorce lawyers (and if you were me, you would know the divorce lawyers) have a saying: “It starts in bed, but it ends in court.”
A wise lurker (and is there any wiser than those who not but lurk?) would say "It stars in GQ, but it ends in the Pit.
This board is dedicated to fighting ignorance - the absence of fact. But is information the same as wisdom? Wisdom, I’ve learned, is an art, not a science. And was it not Picasso who said “art is the lie that allows us to see the truth”?
I fear the day when GQ will consist of an OP to the effect of “what do you know about blah-blah-blah” and the phaetonic post in response of “You ass! Don’t waste our bandwidth - log onto http://www.blah-blah-blah.com!” And maybe another post of “Buffoon - both of you! Haven’t you seen http://www.debunk dot blah-blah-blah.com?” H.L. Menken’s proverbial 1000 monkeys at keyboards, pulling up websites, will have come true.
I fear the day when GD will be no more that the beating, nay (neigh?) the masturbation of a dead horse. I long ago proposed a system of posters committing to either pro or con on a topic, and the lurkers registering votes, much as an audience at a university debate votes by exiting the hall by either one door or another. Who would make such suggestions may as well plough the seas.
I have been obliged to make my living in customer relations long enough to observe that people will feign insult, even if none was obviously offered and none taken, if it can be used as a lever of advantage. This is only more so in print, where vocal inflection is lacking and the worst can be interpreted if it suits ones’ own position. As the saying goes “polite conversation is usually neither.” This is only more so in type. You will be picked away at, not only out of context, but also out of all human comprehesion, should it suit some other’s poster’s impersonal ego. And no one will jump into the flaming on your behalf, any more that any chicken will assist one of her number who is being pecked to death for wearing a feather that bore a seed.
I fear IMHO, because, as Red Grange advised: “writing is easy - you just sit at a typewriter and open a vein.” Who wants to bleed forth into a forum where nobody ready anyone else’s post, but just dog-piles onto a column of posts?
And I fear the Mindless forum most of all, despite Charles Dickens warning to beware the boy that is ignorance more than the girl that is want. I don’t know how few children Dickens supported, because while that boy is a constant annoyance, that girl is a bitch on wheels. And nothing is so wanting as the desire to express everything while sharing nothing.
Have you ever been in the process of falling asleep next to a lover, and been brought back to a waking state by the sound of their eyelashes batting against the pillowcase, signaling that he or she is lying awake troubled by thoughts that perhaps you should lie awake and share? Or have you ever had a mild confrontation, the sort of which is the common currency of daily existence, where you can actually smell the scent given by the raising of another’s hackles, and your mind calculates the hierarchy between you two and decides if this is a threat or a obeisance? Such things are impossible on an internet message board. Do not seek them there. It is not that dummies have access to you here. It’s that this is a dummy medium. I know because I have just dedicated my time to post this to it - and I know all to well the value of my observations.
