I will tell you, this is not my tree (which is still up and fully alive!) This was in my neighborhood and I took the picture while I was on a run! I agree with you about the tree. My Oma always kept the tree up til Jan 6th which she called Three Wise Men day.
Girlfriend, you throw these questions out there that seem innocuous, boring even, but they're like a moss-covered trap door on the forest floor. I found myself mildly annoyed by the semantics of the question at first: what do you mean by "need" and "know." I got a little stuck on that, on answering the question correctly :) Where in the continuum between wants and needs does the fulcrum lie? So I looked up Maslow's hierarchy of needs to get some ideas, and I settled on the top tier, self-actualization, as a very productive place to explore. One of the subcategories here was morality, and it reminded me of this quote from Rebecca Solnit's Recollections of My Nonexistence related to how the process of our own writing leads to a greater awareness of our core value system: "You discover what ETHICS are implicit or explicit in how you describe the world, what ideas of beauty you're going to pursue, what your subjects are, which means what you care about, all those things labeled style and voice and tone behind which lies a question of self." (p123) So to answer your annoyingly thought-provoking question, what I need to know is the implicit subset of my ethics as a writer. I suppose the knowledge is all there, but the need comes in making it explicit. Thanks for this question, Tammy. I'm enjoying starting my daily writing with your posts.
Yes, questions can be sneaky. I have started to answer in one way and then a path appears to the left that I have to explore! I love that it caused you to do a bit of research before you dove in! LOL Thank you for sharing your experience. That makes me so happy!
Great question, Tammy. The photo makes me sad. I have a rule, the Christmas tree stays up until AFTER new year.
I will tell you, this is not my tree (which is still up and fully alive!) This was in my neighborhood and I took the picture while I was on a run! I agree with you about the tree. My Oma always kept the tree up til Jan 6th which she called Three Wise Men day.
Girlfriend, you throw these questions out there that seem innocuous, boring even, but they're like a moss-covered trap door on the forest floor. I found myself mildly annoyed by the semantics of the question at first: what do you mean by "need" and "know." I got a little stuck on that, on answering the question correctly :) Where in the continuum between wants and needs does the fulcrum lie? So I looked up Maslow's hierarchy of needs to get some ideas, and I settled on the top tier, self-actualization, as a very productive place to explore. One of the subcategories here was morality, and it reminded me of this quote from Rebecca Solnit's Recollections of My Nonexistence related to how the process of our own writing leads to a greater awareness of our core value system: "You discover what ETHICS are implicit or explicit in how you describe the world, what ideas of beauty you're going to pursue, what your subjects are, which means what you care about, all those things labeled style and voice and tone behind which lies a question of self." (p123) So to answer your annoyingly thought-provoking question, what I need to know is the implicit subset of my ethics as a writer. I suppose the knowledge is all there, but the need comes in making it explicit. Thanks for this question, Tammy. I'm enjoying starting my daily writing with your posts.
Yes, questions can be sneaky. I have started to answer in one way and then a path appears to the left that I have to explore! I love that it caused you to do a bit of research before you dove in! LOL Thank you for sharing your experience. That makes me so happy!