I am very aware how my written words sound to my ear. It does not matter what it is–a blog, essay, poem, etc. It always makes a difference when I have read a piece out loud. That was what was first–the oral tradition. People did not have books. They sat around a fire reciting their stories. When I read things I have written out loud, I find errors. Sometimes I have deleted a word or the tense is wrong. Other times a word may not ring true and I have to insert a different one. Sometimes there are duplication or repetition. If I don’t want a phrase there, I may have to move it or delete it. I may not like the cadence or sounds the words make. It is always easier to find the errors after I have read the piece out loud.
Tags: blog, books, editing your writing, essay, finding errors in your written piece, poem, reading out loud, reciting their stories, the sounds of the words, writing, written words
Posted in knowledge&learning, time, writing, your job/mission/profession |
I don’t have to be ashamed when I don’t know something. I used to be but no longer. I think of the passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essay “Self- Reliance”: ‘There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance’…
When you are ashamed of what you don’t know you are comparing yourself to someone else. I had to accept who I was, whatever my portion of knowledge I possessed and go on from there.
Comparing myself to someone else just got in the way. I had to accept who I was. There would always be others who knew more and conversely who knew less.
My body of knowledge started off with me, whatever my limitations and that was the way it was. Envy, which had turned into shame, just got in the way. Every time I read those lines of Emerson’s I could relax. I no longer had to be ashamed of what I did not know.
Tags: accept who I was, ashamed, comparing myself, comparing yourself to someone else, don't know something, education, envy is ignorance, envy turned into shame, essay, knowledge, limitations, Ralph Waldo Emerson, relax, Self-Reliance
Posted in balance, knowledge&learning, life, mental health, wisdom, writing |
