elaboration re_alisma one of those "lost arts." 101112 ... perfectly_chaotic I recently quit trying to elaborate everything I say. It only seems to make things worse when I do. 101113 ... re_alisma well, don't let them get you down. balance is findable. from the book_i'm_reading by a Jungian analyst (might or might not be relevant): "Out of polarity comes consciousness, out of consciousness comes the capacity for choice, out of the capacity for choice comes moral sensibility, and out of moral sensibility arises maturity." then he goes on to say how painful the whole thing is, but it must be undertaken to avoid folly. nowadays, when i can think of something to say, i usually say it. i have little to lose and much to gain. i also regret, greatly, the shyness of my youth. better to speak reasonably, if full of defects and incompetance, than not at all. i have to know that i'm trying. 101114 ... perfectly_chaotic I have finally learned to keep my mouth shut a lot more often. Learning to know when to keep it shut and when to open it has been a long and painful process. It was certainly necessary. There was this disease I was born with known as "being born human", which is not always easy to live with. We are born with this huge learning curve we need to compensate for. The rules are not set in stone and many of us fail for what seems like forever... While you can hear people tell you certain things about how to make your life easier, we do not often take it to heart until we have learned for ourselves the hard way. One lesson that has been valuable, which I have also learned the hard way, is to not always say everything that I am thinking. It turns out *gasps* I am often wrong. No sense in me creating more unnecessary chaos because I have over analyzed something to death with a mind clouded with anger or misery. I have given many false elaborations. Unknowingly, they were fabrications on the fly. 101227 what's it to you? who go blather from