Hostility

Erin McLaughlin (erinseyes@hotmail.com)
Sun, 22 Nov 1998 13:41:22 -0800 (PST)

Michael wrote:
"Erin you hostiliy attacked me and I am deeply disappointed in your 
maturity level.  After all this is only a debate.  I am an author, as 
you say, but only of letters, not stories.  Therein lies the key 
difference in what I am stating.  In stories the meaning is at least 
slightly hidden.  In letters the meaning is out there for you to see.  I 
state that you must discover the meaning, but going too far is what I am 
against.  You don't need to ask jd about the meaning.  Interpert for 
yourself.  Don't take it beyond the most obvious and relevant meaning. 
Looking at details and attempting to decipher them to such an extent as 
to find a meaning that isn't there is wrong.  You find a message that 
the isn't there.  Therefore you are believing in things that don't 
exist." 

I'm replying:

Michael, I really don't think I was HOSTILE towards you. Sarcastic, 
maybe, well...okay, definitely, but I was just trying to say

uh-oh.

Obviously letters can be misinterpreted, too. How about that?

I know this is only a debate, and I'm really attacking your point. See, 
I don't think this is a debate about finding meaning as much as it a 
debate and words and the way we use words to communicate meaning (if you 
can, in fact, communicate MEANING). 

Maybe I do believe in things that don't exist. That's a chance I take 
with Santa Claus, the general goodness of human beings, and even with 
God, some would say.

But you say that when I read I should not "take it beyond the most 
obvious and relevant meaning." Maybe you forget that what is obviouc and 
relevant to one isn't quite so to another. Further, I know that I've 
written before, and each time even I look at it I find something else in 
it that I really hadn't seen before. Does that mean that what I'm seeing 
the second and third time around doesn't exist or isn't relevant because 
I wasn't conscious of it while I wrote it down?

I'm sorry, I really am. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Erin

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