Eclectic Memories

I’m sitting here at my computer thinking about a thought for this morning that you might choose to read. First of all, my appreciation is that you occasionally take the time to check these wandering words and free-floating thoughts. Thank you.

I often read the wandering constructions of others and have for most of my life. Today I find the eclectic missives of thoughtful and thoughtless people plastered all over the Internet universe.

Long before the Internet, however, I dug into a collection of printed thinking in a college dorm room reading a book by Cyril Connolly. He was a British writer who died in 1974. The book was called the Unquiet Grave. I loved that book. It became my mantra, my friend, and my go to reading to escape or to embrace a thought for discussion or debate.

Though not from that book, one of my favorite quotes from Connolly is: “Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism is what will be read once.”

I used to say things like that when I would speak to service organizations or at a college journalism class. I would say, “Broadcast information journalism is fleeting. You get to say it once for people who half hear and half listen and misinterpret quickly.” My concluding logic to my students or audience was that is why it is so important to say it clearly, cleanly and concisely the first time.

There was one passage from the book that I have never forgotten. Connolly was talking about a bow and arrow in some context. As I remember it, he said, “Who is to say whether a bow tightens the string or the string bends a bow?”

Even as a young student I found that to be the ultimate life dichotomy. It was a beautiful contradiction that could be extrapolated into understandable every day experiences.

Thank you for sharing my meanderings.

Be well.