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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.
22 responses total.
A couple of my friends write on graph paper. Now *that's* structured! ...and then there's orin's aritistic "Hey, there's extra room, let's doodle!" style, which is much more fun. :)
try removing "set edalways" and "EDITOR=gate" from your .cfonce. Then you get out of that box.
I fear that will not work. Hitting explictly carriage returns has been programmed into my psyche.
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.
Or just make a holy vow to write in pig latin the rest of your life.
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.
Except of course, when the end of your idea is also at the end of your line. In that case I recommend that you attempt both.
utwhat aboutway untilway uhthay endway ofway uhthay itemway?
How horribly linear. Ideas branch out like the limbs of an oak tree growing up beside the wellspring of your being. If you will not let it branch out and put forth multitudes of new leaves on many branches, your tree will die or be transformed (as will you!) into some horribly twisted and sickly thing.
Trees with nodes. Lots of them. Multiple nodes. Each with quadratics.
Duh, I can't keep track of any ideas that are longer than my finger. Yuck yuck yuck.
What is it, pray tell, that the Snord is incessantly disgusted by?
Duh, I don't think I'm disguted with anything, Mr Handlebar.
duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, what was this item about?
"yuck yuck yuck" is to be read as laughter, you dummies.
why do ppl call them dummy variables?
Because they're too dim to change when they're supposed to.
Duh, I suppose they could call them manequin variables but that would be pretentious.
And pretention is the task of the ventriloquist.
is there a ventriloquist in the room?
Duh, nobody here but us d... oh never mind.
Thank you, snord.
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