When I Was a Child Learning to Write

Jul 24 03:44 UTC 1997

        When I was a child learning to write, I was taught that
        the length of each line that I put on the page should be
        roughly the same as that of every other line, the entire
        text fitting squarely between one margin on the left and
        another on the right.

        "But my thoughts are not of equal length," I protested.
        "Some of my thoughts are short, others are of middling
        span, and a few are quite long indeed. Should not the
        lengths of the lines on the page vary as the thoughts
        which they are intended to express?"

        I was told that I was a very foolish child for harboring
        such ideas, and that if I persisted in them I would do
        poorly in school and never get into a good college. I
        would be a disgrace to my family and be relegated to
        employment of a menial nature all my life.

        The fear of failure and disgrace thus instilled, I
        succumbed to the strictures of my tutors and fitted my
        prose neatly between margins, just as they commanded.

        Now, at this late hour of my life, I am retired, living
        on a modest but comfortable pension. I could arrange my
        writing in any way that pleased me, without fear of
        consequence. But habit, deeply ingrained by a lifetime
        of rigorously conforming my prose to set margins, leaves
        me unable to change. All my writing is as you see it
        here, neatly fitted into a rectagle between set margins.
        I cannot do otherwise.

        Just as my writing is confined to a box, so was my life,
        in a sense. My achievements were positive, my habits
        dependable, and I was rewarded with a moderate salary, 
        neither very high nor very low. Yet my life was a
        conventional one, prosaic, boxed within clearly 
        delineated margins. I often wonder whether, if I had
        defied my early teachers and given myself free reign,
        arranging my writing on the page to mirror the wildly
        varying patterns of my thoughts, I would have achieved
        something more, perhaps something special, great, im-
        mortal.

        I shall never know.

response 2 of 22:

Jul 30 16:16 UTC 1997

try removing "set edalways" and "EDITOR=gate" from your .cfonce.  Then you
get out of that box.

response 4 of 22:

Jul 31 16:23 UTC 1997

Try prying off the key cap of the Enter key.  Leave the keypad one in place
so you can still finish your responces.  Put a burning hot coal where the old
Enter key was, to expidite the reeducation process.

response 6 of 22:

Aug 1 00:23 UTC 1997

I expressed myself badly. I want to hit the enter key, but only
at the end of an idea, not at the end of a line.

response 8 of 22:

Aug 9 02:55 UTC 1997

utwhat aboutway untilway uhthay endway ofway uhthay itemway?

response 10 of 22:

Oct 13 02:29 UTC 1997

Trees with nodes.  Lots of them.  Multiple nodes.  Each with quadratics.

response 12 of 22:

Oct 14 21:29 UTC 1997

What is it, pray tell, that the Snord is incessantly disgusted by?

response 14 of 22:

Oct 16 02:59 UTC 1997

duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, what was this item about?

response 16 of 22:

Oct 18 02:45 UTC 1997

why do ppl call them dummy variables?

response 18 of 22:

Oct 18 22:24 UTC 1997

Duh, I suppose they could call them manequin variables but that
would be pretentious.

response 20 of 22:

Oct 19 02:50 UTC 1997

is there a ventriloquist in the room?

response 22 of 22:

Oct 19 20:10 UTC 1997

Thank you, snord.