"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing."Meister Eckhart
For some reason this quotation from the Meister has stayed with me since university, but my personal jury is still out on the sentiments expressed in it.
Like many others who are ardent devotees of art, books, paper and printed words on a page, any old page, I suffer from the benighted desire to edit each and every blog endlessly, to first write down and then polish every paragraph until it howls for mercy, screaming to be let alone and spared the ordeal of another edit. It's a temptation I contend with vigorously every time I come to this place, and I try to resist the compelling tug to "work on it a little longer".
Which is the true thing, the entry scripted originally or the one which remains at the end of the day and the editing process? By and large, these entries are as I wrote them in the first place, with minor tweaking here and there to adjust punctuation and spelling. I still can't spell worth a hoot or punctuate my way out of a paper bag, but it is interesting to note that these days, editing (other than on spelling and punctuation) usually involves erasing, pruning and paring away, rather than grafting new "stuff" onto the blog I am working on. I always seem to be taking things away, rather than adding things in. If things continue on in this way, I shall be borrowing the Meister's eraser very soon - my own is dwindling rapidly.
Like many others who are ardent devotees of art, books, paper and printed words on a page, any old page, I suffer from the benighted desire to edit each and every blog endlessly, to first write down and then polish every paragraph until it howls for mercy, screaming to be let alone and spared the ordeal of another edit. It's a temptation I contend with vigorously every time I come to this place, and I try to resist the compelling tug to "work on it a little longer".
Which is the true thing, the entry scripted originally or the one which remains at the end of the day and the editing process? By and large, these entries are as I wrote them in the first place, with minor tweaking here and there to adjust punctuation and spelling. I still can't spell worth a hoot or punctuate my way out of a paper bag, but it is interesting to note that these days, editing (other than on spelling and punctuation) usually involves erasing, pruning and paring away, rather than grafting new "stuff" onto the blog I am working on. I always seem to be taking things away, rather than adding things in. If things continue on in this way, I shall be borrowing the Meister's eraser very soon - my own is dwindling rapidly.
1 comment:
Well when I was young I saw most of the lighthouses on Louisiana's coast. The ones I recall were somewhat regal compared to the steel ones, with the exception of the Ship Shoal Lighthouse off the coast of Terrebonne-Lafourche parishe. It still stands, to the best of my knowledge, rusting away standing isolated several miles from the Illes Denniere (sp?) sort of planted in deep water.
The most majestic were of wood and were isolated where they were manned by U S Coast Guardsmen for the most part. I recall the one off of Cameron parish but my favorites was the Oyster Bayou light in Terrebonne and Eugene Island lighthouse at the mouth of the Atachafalaya (sp?) River. The latter stood like a huge Las Vegas Casino building and I always looked forward to seeing it because as we headed west towards Vermillion Bay it meant calmer waters. That meant that I could read with the boat sloshing around in the waves and the calmness allowed me to draw pictures of futuristic cars.
Really sad that Louisiana has lost them because the government didn't see fit to keep them while those on the west and east coasts were kept pristine and up to today even have people living in them.
Appreciate your work.
God Bless
Godfrey J. Buquet (retired)
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