seminar Quintessensual Why bother with a seminar anyway? (Encouragement for a young scholar) " Seminar " is actually an erotic term, meaning to inseminate with knowledge or ideas. As you know, though, at most events styled to be "seminars," you would hardly know it. Too often at these events, the presenter has no knowledge or ideas to inseminate with, or seems to feel that way, or that s/he's not really in the mood, or presents in a way that puts the intended recipients of her/his intellectual semen to sleep rather than exciting them to the point that they not only want it but must have it. Then, even if the presenter is up to it, the intended recipients often act like they are not in heat, so to speak. They do not want to be in the same room, or they'd rather be doing something else than being intellectually inseminated (to not be too crude about what they really feel). Like eating lunch, or sleeping, or studying for some exam, or playing touch football, or being involved in another process, intended to entail insemination, that they are thinking about and that involves not only the mind but soft, warm, and sweaty flesh as well. But occasionally the intellectual love-making clicks. To be part of the process when this happens, as presenter or recipient, is in fact an erotic experience. One's body does indeed react like love-making is going on, although the meeting is just of the minds, at least until the seminar is over. One can understand then why the name " seminar " is so apt. Not only is it an erotic term, but it establishes a standard to be strived for. The word " talk " just doesn't have the same lofty cachet. Rather it suggests the people involved are in separate beds, if not separate compartments. No wonder it is hard to get excited about preparing for and giving a " talk " and hard to drag oneself to listen to one. At occasions, where a seminar meets the standard the word sets, the presenters are turned on. Often this happens when the presenter has recently had an "eureka experience," by having made a discovery that s/he believes is - and often is in fact - important for the intellectual field involved. At these seminars, whether or not associated with an eureka experience of the presenter, the presenter knows s/he has something interesting - and exciting - to say and is excited by the chance to say it. Sometimes hyperexcited is a more apt term. The intended recipients of the presenter's insemination see and feel this hyperexcitement and actually become warm and sweaty. After a bit of intellectual foreplay, they not only want what the presenter wants to give them but they demand it. They behave, in excited mannerisms and questioning, like they want more and more, like they just cannot get enough. Participants in these intellectual love feasts typically leave them exhausted, much in the same way that lovers lie exhausted after a session of intense love-making. So keep the faith. The time will surely come, if it hasn't already, when you refuse to call what you intend to do a " talk " and insist that it will be a " seminar. " Perhaps this will not be until you have an eureka experience, but you surely will. Copr. 1999 991208 what's it to you? who go blather from