insight Q I do not expect miniver to believe any of this, but it is offered in the spirit of blathercriticism as she seems to define that. More than anything, I would hope to hear from her twenty years from now what she thinks then about what I am trying to say here. Thirty years from now would be even better, except that statistics suggest I will not be around then to enjoy what she might have to say. When I was 18, like miniver, I, like miniver, believed myself to have an all encompassing grasp of knowledge of and insight into all things and all people, dead and living, whether or not I actually knew anything or anything about them. Also, like miniver, I did not hesitate in letting the world know what I believed I knew. One thing I still believe from that time is that it was very healthy for me to have such supreme self-confidence. I believe the same about miniver. Self-esteem might be a problem for many people, especially young people, but at least when I was miniver's age it was no problem for me and now it surely is not a problem for her. I must note, though, that I never hesitated then to let the world know who I was and how I could be reached. Miniver has elected to hide such information about herself from most if not all of us who know her only through blather. Notwithstanding this little insecurity of hers, I frankly think we should celebrate miniver's bravado in proclaiming her analyses of so many of us, even though to the best of my knowledge she really does not know any of us and does not know squat about most things, including especially psychology. But, really, that's okay. It is good for the world and, more importantly, for themselves that many 18 year olds think they know everything about everything and everybody. Amazingly, during the years right after I was 18, I continued to increase my fount of knowledge and wisdom. To be sure there were some incidences of self-evaluation and self-doubt, like at the moment I faced the very loaded AK47 of an East Berlin border guard whom I had just loudly declared to many of his countryman to be a fascist pig and to whom I had refused to turn over my passport. I believe I peaked about the time I turned 22 in my self-assessment of my knowledge and wisdom. Then, between about 24 and 26, I had a flash of genius and realized that I knew almost nothing. I suddenly saw the world, the people in it and their interactions as too messy, everyone's knowledge of the world, its peoples and its history too woefully incomplete, and what anyone could know of such incomplete knowledge too miniscule. Ever since then I have been trying to learn something bit by bit, person by person, community by community. It has been amazingly slow going, given all that I knew when I was 22, or even 18. It is refreshing though to come across a young person who is willing to admit she knows everything. In the meantime, I do like to write but do not like to let others read what I write unless I like to read it myself. I like what I write even better if somebody else chooses, or feels somehow compelled, to read it. 000906 ... Grendel Amen and hallelujah, brother Q. Testify! 000906 ... sarpedon I'm with Q I don't know why, but even though I am just about the same age, I believe I do not feel the same way as minerva does. All it takes is one look out the window of a tall building and I realize what a small world I really live in, and cannot possibly fathom all the knowledge spread about. I'm with Q 000906 ... sarpedon But what do I know about anything 000906 ... splinken dear ya'll, the plan is as follows: i will forever be 20. i will know everything forever. forever and ever. amen. who's with me? supersincerely, *ka-boom!* 000906 ... miniver Do I really appear to believe that I know everything? Really? Why is that? That is, what makes me appear that way? Because I argue a lot? Or the self-righteousness thing, I guess? I'm frighteningly self-righteous, when I get going, indeed. And, also, with the blathercriticisms, I do, in fact, realize that I am being obnoxiously presumptuous. But, I told blather that's what I was going to do. Right? I mean, I said "I have these arrogant assumptions". Or, is it also obnoxiously presumptuous to assume that it makes me less obnoxiously presumptuous by admitting to being obnoxiously presumptuous, while still being obnoxiously presumptuous. Hmm. I don't think I have any all-encompassing knowledge. But, I'll probably have to think about what I REALLY think about that, considering so many opinions to the contrary. I do, however, think I have insight into pretty much everything. I think everyone does, whether they intend to or not. That doesn't mean that insight is all-encompassing, or even particularly great; it doesn't mean that it's going to be insightful for everyone. But there is certainly that potential. It would probably completely piss me off if a lot of other people thought of themselves like that, though! True. But, I'm sorta trapping myself here. Either I believe I'm right about this insight-theory, or I believe I'm insightful. And, then, yet, either I believe I'm right about being right or insightful, or I believe I'm insightful about being right or insightful. Sometimes, -- oftentimes -- relative to the theories of other people, I believe my theories to be much more "correct", given whatever theory best fulfills whatever requirement needed fulfillment. Yup. Anyway. I consider my blathercriticisms more arrogant (in this respect, at least) than my view of those blathercriticisms. That is, those criticisms are very presumptuous. But, I do indeed find those criticisms very presumptuous (and not, I like to believe, 'all-encompassing'). So. Also, can you not e-mail me, if so inclined? I even have 2 e-mail addresses floating around little miniver, as a matter of fact. 000907 ... sleepless I knew very little when I was 18. I knew a bit more when I was 22. Between the ages of 23 and 26, I uncannily perfected the art of knowing absolutely nothing about anything. From 26 to 28, I was too busy to know anything, but I thought I knew everything. Since 28, I have been learning, little by little. What have I learnt? I've learnt that since I was 16, I've actually known most things. But since 28, I've known what to do with it. The moral of this tale? You probably do know nearly everything you need to know at 18. But it may be some years before you can connect the WHY to the WHAT. I'm aiming to have achieved the explosive meeting of these two opposing forces by the time I'm 40, although I fully expect to have to get both WHAT and WHY incredibly drunk on a lot of cheap alcohol for them to see eye to eye. I also fully expect to fail miserably in this mission. WHAT and WHY haven't been getting on for some years now, and they've both told me during late night telephone conversations that, frankly, they want nothing to do with each other. In fact, WHY is obsessed with WHO to an unhealthy degree; and WHAT is lacking direction and simply cannot locate WHERE. I rest my case. 000907 ... Effingham Fish I laugh. Heartily. 020102 ... Freak I love the insight you can get from the people who blather. You can't get a sense of who someone really is when it could be the total opposite of what you would think if you had just seen them. 020801 ... Piso Mojado . 050307 ... spoken i do believe i'd like to be invited to that party to get drunk with them all WHY, WHAT, WHERE and WHO and i might even bring along I DONT F'ING KNOW and his twin brother WHO GIVES A DAMN they can be pretty fun if you like the loud obnoxious type. 090420 what's it to you? who go blather from