PHONE PROGRESSION and PERSONAL EVOLUTION

 

The Israel I was born into had few personal/private phones. At that time, only physicians and government officials had a phone at home.

 

I was four when we got a line at our apartment, and we had to share it with a neighbor family. That meant any time the neighbors used the phone, ours would be dead. My father complained that their daughter was a teenager, and that meant (you guessed it) she was on the phone for hours. But who would this teenager be talking to when few families had phones?

 

Being the first two families in the building with phones also meant a line of neighbors at our door in the evenings asking to use our phone and each paying us the cost of a local call. It was a fixed equivalent of ten cents. In those days, one would never turn down a neighbor’s wish to talk on the phone to one of their relatives who were also lucky to have a phone. This meant we perennially had neighbors in our living room waiting for their turn. It was just fine.

 

About a year or two later, more lines popped up and we even got the neighbors with the teenage daughter off our shared line. The country was growing, and now most people had landlines into their homes.

Then came the modular phones, which meant a phone in every room. You’d think this provided privacy, but it didn’t because it was a single line and the dreaded click of a parent listening to my conversations (by then I was approaching the teen years) meant it was in fact less private.

 

Then came answering machines, and we didn’t run to answer the phone anymore because the machine would get it. Eventually the first mobile phones appeared, then the many lines to a single residence, and, you guessed it--- the smart phones. So smart, that they not only track us but listen to us.

 

By then I was living in the USA and our family was among the last to switch to smartphones. We were forced to when Verizon shut down the 3G network. I witnessed others who got a head start on these brilliant gizmos, carrying these little buggers from room to room, even sitting to dinner with their phone next to their plates.

This is exactly what I didn’t want to do or become. Me, a slave to my phone? No thanks.

 

We’re all caught up for the moment with phone conveniences. But I have learned a thing or two in the few years where others surfed smartly, and I stayed basic. I learned what I didn’t want and find that I now use my genius phone the way we used our first landline way back when. Ninety-five percent of the time it’s in a fixed place. It’s never “on me,” and definitely never ever at the dinner table. My phone is turned off every night. I disabled almost all notifications.  

 

Because I want to own a phone that doesn’t own me. I remember the days when life was richer because we were not awash in the phony (pun intended) notion that without a phone life’s bells cease ringing.

Interesting...?

There are words that have changed meaning over the generations. Think how cool went from “of or at fairly low temperature” to an expression of admiration and approval, sometime in the 1950s, and to this day. Think of how bad became someone who is super cool in the 1980s.

Words are the writers’ basic tools. So we have to know them and their ever-evolving meaning. Some are obvious when they morph, such as the above. A teen’s comment to another that “you’re so bad” is a statement of praise. Got it. But then there are the super subtle nuanced meanings that require a good ear.

One of these that have perplexed me is the evolution of the word interesting.

When I was growing up, and in the circles I inhabited, this was as high a praise you can bestow on a person or a thing. Aside from the obvious virtues of a principled character, intelligence and a good heart, being interesting is as good as it gets. But when DD became a tween, I discovered it has another meaning.

“Interesting,” she’d say, when she meant, “I don’t care for it but I won’t say that outright.” It is said in a different tone, one that suggests ambivalence. It got so I would follow these statements with a question, “do you mean it’s riveting or that it’s odd in a way you don’t really care for?”

Eventually I just asked,” do you mean ‘interesting!’ or ‘interesting... L’?”

I thought it was a generational thing, or possibly a cultural difference, as I grew up in another country. But recently I got some feedback on a manuscript that began with “Interesting.” After the period came a qualifying sentence that suggested the critic didn’t want to make an outright negative statement, but they were not favorably inclined.

So this other meaning of interesting has crossed over to my generation.

I find the subtleties of language, well, interesting.

Are we too SELF-INVOLVED?

A good friend who is a thoughtful intelligent person let me know she considers all writers, actors, and artists to be too self-involved. She is not a writer or an artist but she is a good reader and as such she consumes a lot of our output.

Obviously, this took me aback. Then I let it sink and got to thinking.

I now see she has a point even as I insist on shying away from broad stroke generalizations. Modern artists in all media focus on personal and distinctive ways of seeing and revealing reality. The creatives of the modern age are not bound by communal standards and rigid rules. It is about individual insight aka “Me.”

This stands in clear contrast to religious art pre-renaissance, where an artist’s abilities were in the service of communal thought and artists were thus anonymous.

So once I licked the wound of what I took as a piercing indictment, I realized my friend had a valid point.

But here’s the counter point: yes, artistic creativity is now about the individual, and we like it that way. The ethos of our country and the modern west is the individual.

There’s a spiritual and emotional cost to the modern way. An honest look at artists will show this undeniable truth. The obsessiveness with self comes at the expense of the serenity that yielding to the communal can confer.

It’s a price we pay, and have insisted on paying, since the European Renaissance and later the so-called European Enlightenment. As mechanization in industry standardized everything we consume, artists play a counterpoint with ever-increasing obsession with differences. 

It has its extreme excesses as well as points of luminosity. It is where we’ve gone; always searching for why are we here.

Thank you for indulging my highfalutin musings this day.

Out of the COMFORT Zone~~~

There is a valid suggestion, not only for artistic creative folks but for all, to get out of one’s comfort zone now and then.

The thing about comfort, which has much to recommend it, is that it has a lulling affect. You don’t want to walk through life lulled all the time, do you? Certainly not if you want your muse to keep talking to you.

So this last Sunday I did something that took me out of my comfort zone. At least that’s what I told myself to get Self there. I went to an in-person meeting with lots of folks I don’t know, without a single person I do know. The last time I did that was before the invention of the wheel, or so it seems to me.

The meeting was of local SCBWI members, (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and for the first time this chapter was meeting in a café practically in my neighborhood. It was too good not to go to. Sunday morning is a perfect time for me. I know the café and I like it. It stopped raining and the sun washed the streets with rays of positive vibrations. I had no excuse.

What’s the big deal, you say?

For a shy person it is a big deal.

Everyone there was lovely and many were lively. I pretended not to be shy, (that’s one of my specialties, developed of necessity) and tried to be helpful. It was nice.

But here’s the real deal— I got out of my comfort zone and the creative juices reconstituted into liquid flow. A good, good thing.

What would you do to get out of your comfort zone?

Nothing Wasted

When a job application does not result in an offer, when an audition did not yield a part, or when a story failed to find a publisher, many sum up the time and effort as a failure.

Here’s my take, which is also a sort of moto for me:

Nothing wasted if I learned from it.

I have written middle grade novels that have not sold. (Yet. Let’s be positive.) But in the process of research for each my world got richer, fuller, and the purse of riches is still with me and continues to grow.

The only writing failures in my eyes are the stories that came with little inner motivation, such as attempting something that was fashionable, or repeating a variation of a story and setting I have plowed and fully mined before. Those taught me nothing. (Unless I count the “don’t do this again,” so maybe they are not complete failures, either.)

Striving and learning are the most worthwhile of all. Prizes may be the frosting, but striving is the cake.

Eat cake, folks!

REGRET is a Useless Emotion Unless...

It Prompts to Do Better Going Forward

I’ve heard actors and musicians say they don’t care to look at their own performances because they cringe at how they did something they should have done differently. For writers, the printed first edition can yield a similar emotion. There is much we’d change, rephrase, or cut. Now it’s set, and we can’t.

Life is like that. Once something has passed, regret can take over about the many things that we could’ve and maybe should’ve, and now we can’t do over.

I know people who are raked with regrets. It’s a useless loop that serves to paralyze. The functional among us “let it go,” which usually means we try to forget and move on.

But forgetting, while serving the purpose of getting the wheels to move, isn’t the best way. For my own process, there were times I wished I could be as good at forgetting as many people I have known. There’s at least one typo in each of my published books that gnaws on me, and I can’t do a thing about it. There are chapters in my life I would never “do” the same way.

I found a way to mentally handle these sorts of cant’-fix ‘em. I am not a Catholic, but I borrowed it from the Catholic confession, when at the end the priest says, “Now go and sin no more.” This echoes Jesus’ saying. (John 8, 11) The brilliance of confession is not the telling, or the penance. It’s an awareness combined with learning from mistakes and resolving to not repeat.

Nothing wasted— if we learn from it.

I will look at my performance. I will stare at these typos and awkward phrasings. I will remember where I dropped the ball. Then I will resolve to pay attention and to try not to repeat. Of course, I will repeat. But maybe not the same mistakes or sins, and maybe I will catch them earlier when I can fix something. It’s a process, and a mighty beneficial one.

In this way, regret becomes useful.

Why Do I Love My Cats?

It’s not a state-secret that I like cats. But I LOVE my cats.

I have some dear friends who do not like cats. One doesn’t like animals, period. A second has always had a dog and just doesn’t care for cats. A third loves dogs, but only English bulldogs for some reason, and cats are “aloof to the point of being appalling,” so sayeth he. A fourth professes to like cats a little, but is allergic. 

I don’t have to explain my admiration for domestic felines to avowed cat-fanciers. But I do find myself justifying my admiration of the species to many of my friends. Why do I like cats? They’re beautiful, graceful, smell good, and, what can I say-- are self-cleaning. Most admirable.

Why do I LOVE mine?

Because in addition to all the above, I take care of them.

It was a revelation to discover that at the root of abiding love is the experience of taking care of the beloved. Not what they did for me, but what I did for them.

That explains a lot. We take care of young and very old humans in diapers. We pick up after them and let them scream at us. And then, when they have worn us out, we love them even more.

It isn’t what is most glorious or glamorous; it’s the care they made us extend.

For once, I have some insight into the divine love for creation.

And before I get too sappy and waaaay too lofty here, I’m heading to clean the litter box.

Don’t Over-protect Your Characters

The title of this post is also a post-it I have over my computer. Reminder to self.

In my first chapter book story, written with the hope to publish, the main character dealt with such challenging issues as wondering how to make others hear him, how to accept less than perfect days, and how to accept a new sibling. All this he did while his loving and supportive family was both nurturing and helpful. The boy had the childhood we all wished we had, and wish with all our might we have the wisdom to give to our children.

I think I wanted to wrap him in a warm and fluffy blanket and keep him from harm. No wonder this story was a non-starter as far as the publishing world goes.

You think I might have been over-protective?

It took me a while to allow my characters, a.k.a. my fictional children, to get into deep trouble. The kind of trouble I would hope my real-life children never will.

And then, of course, the characters find a way out of the bind. It could be they defeat some evil, solve an urgent practical problem, or accept a difficult aspect of life internally. But they had to be in deep doodoo to begin with. It was hard.

I’m still working on it. I know I’ve made progress because one beta reader asked me recently why the antagonists in my story had to be so awful. Couldn’t they be, well, more reasonable? I explained that they could, but then there isn’t any story to tell.

Editors sometimes refer to this as “raising the stakes.” Don’t fear it, face it, and the readers will have a chance to do the same.

What EBooks Could Be

Some bloggers have been lamenting the EBook bust.

As one who writes for younger readers, I observed that the EBook boom never happened for them. Neither picture books nor novels for pre-teens have been great sellers in that format.

Why? Aren’t young’uns crazy about devices? Don’t they want their books on a handy-dandy virtual page, like the rest of their social life?

A writing friend commented that the problem with EBooks is that they fail to use, really use, the electronic features they are capable of having that would have made them different.

EBooks, as they are now, are just computer files with nothing more than the print text and the ability to enlarge it, or even find certain words.

The capability that we have come to expect from any website or digital article would make books better, in ways, than print. Digitized text could be made to have "extra layers" not only in the way DVDs contained more features than the film, but so much more. EBooks could have highlighted words that would take the reader to side videos, moving clips, or extra material, which includes sound.

This would mean higher production costs, but publishers get a near-free ride with EBooks as they are now. No warehousing, shipping, printing or dealing with worn returns. For a single process of file conversion they have a product that costs pennies, with a few more to the distributor, (mostly Amazon) and is “in print” forever. It behooves publishers to make a different and distinctive product if they really want to make true “electronic books,” or EBooks.

But we are so not there yet. As it is now, there is no compelling reason to read on kindle even if the price is right and you can haul a whole bunch of books in one light device. Few kids read a whole bunch of books at once anyhow.

Where they do use it, increasingly, is for textbooks. As school systems force this conversion, kids don’t mind not having to haul those books. But this is different from pleasure reading.

And no matter what, you can’t hug your favorite volume, your most beloved book, if it’s a file on an E-reader. That is why they need to give us something more in exchange.

Begin the Begin, or— In the Beginning…

Before I had any books published, before I was agented, before I ever considered I would ever write anything longer than a long picture book text, and before I knew anything about publishing…

Let me begin in the beginning. I wrote, revised and submitted my first manuscript way back in ancient times. I mistakenly labeled my chapter book story in my query. I called it a picture book because, as I said^, I didn’t know better. This 7,000-word episodic story that was inspired by The Little Prince (16,000 plus words, which some still consider a picture book) had too many things wrong with it, and my query had many more faux-pas. But it must have had something right, because only ten days later I got a very nice and encouraging personal rejection from one of the six small publishers I had subjected my offering to.

After that all the rejections were forms. So were the rejections to stories that followed, for the next eighteen months. I learned that truly personal feedback was rare, and I also learned many more things about writing and submitting.

One publisher never responded, but this, too, was common. Even back then.

Years passed. Winters turned to springs and summers turned to autumns. I was forever grateful for that first personal rejection because it kept me going onto better writing and not giving up.

Until today. It’s been a long time since my stamped self-addressed envelopes showed up with regularity in my mailbox. Everyone had moved to E-subbing, and my agent takes care of this aspect now. But today, there it was. My final rejection to that very first submission for a story I sent, ahmm, nine years ago.

Lest you imagine it was a form, as in “clearing the slush” by a summer intern at this publishing house, I will tell you otherwise. It’s a nice personal rejection. It also states that the story is really a chapter book, not a picture book, and that it is filled with “child-like imagination.” But, alas, the house has never tackled this length of story. The response is dated from six days ago, signed by the senior editor.

I am flummoxed, flabbergasted, and flat-out speechless. I don’t know what it means, if anything. I almost let magical thinking take over: the first and the last… Oh, no! Then I got a grip and decided this is a blog post about how slow publishing can be, and how you can never give up. Much more positive.

Back to work.

Change= ‘Tis a Fixed Fact of Life

I put off making updates to my website as long as I possibly can, and then put it off even longer. My external excuse is that I struggle with the formatting and technical aspects of my site. It’s much less user-friendly than Blogger here. Inserting an image, or changing placement of such, has caused whole paragraphs to disappear. Or, even worse, to appear juxtaposed over each other in a frantic jumble. The techies in my house refuse to deal with it and I’m too embarrassed to ask again, after they all had declared my site a disaster area.

That is my external excuse.

Internally, it’s a different story. I loath to change because I find change traumatic. Maybe if I don’t make the changes for the world (or the handful who look) to see, they won’t be real.

But change is the third thing you can count on, after death and taxes. It will happen.

Me^ back when… Not anymore!

My bio, called About Me , continued to mention the next door neighbor’s cat who’d gone to heaven long ago, and not my own three who have been with us for almost two years. Worse, it suggested my two kiddos still lived with us full-time. That is insulting to college students, and if you know any they will verify. Alas, it had to be changed.

Making these seemingly tiny changes, I felt my insides squishing. You mean to tell me the kids have flown the coop? Must be. It says so on your official website, in black and white*. (*Black on blue, really. But you get the point.)

Chin up. I did it. It’s done, and it’s also true. Moving on.

It’s a Jungle Out There

Remember the frantic repetition from MGM’s The Wizard of Oz— “Lions and tigers and bears, OH, MY!”—?

It’s beginning to resemble my back yard.

In addition to deer, (& their babies) and raccoons, (and their babies) and opossums, and squirrels, and small snakes, and crows, and swallows, we now have…

---FOXES!

And we live in the city.

The Mama doe chased my cats away from her babies, who were larger than my cats. The foxes, on the other hand, played (yes!) with my cats. They rolled on their backs on the ground, teasing as dogs do when they frolic about, and then played chase. But I imagine that if any of my cats were to approach the den where this pair of foxes has their babies, the parents would get ferocious and forget about play chasing. They'd likely cause real damage.

What a jungle!

On our part, we watch from the distance our small yard allows, no more than twenty feet, and try to photograph our guests with a zoom lens. 
We assume their habitat must have been nearby, and somehow got disturbed. Because until this spring none of these wild animals ventured into our small back yard so close to people. It is definitely unusual for foxes to come out for hours in the middle of the day, and let us get this close.

I do worry about my cats. I make sure they have a way to come inside in a hurry. But still…

Of the whole menagerie of uninvited guests, it’s the foxes that captivate me. They are monogamous, and raise their kits together, male and female sharing equally in the care of their young. Call them perfect!

They typically have six to ten kits at one time. I haven’t looked for their den, so as to not disturb their family. But three young'uns have been spotted at one time, playing with tennis balls left behind. They push them with their noses to one another. I kid not. The next thing you know I'll be reporting their newly invented tournament. Stay tuned.

I remind myself they are wild, and must stay that way. We do not feed nor offer our guest room to them. I hope they leave soon and find a home where they can properly roam.

The other day one of the foxes stopped by my window, not even three feet away from me, and we looked at each other.

“No cookies for you,” I said. The fox cocked its head a bit and kept looking.

“Nah-ah,” I repeated. Fox lowered its tail, and a second later was gone. Had it not returned with its mate the next day, no one would have believed me.

I hope we all have a happily-ever-after picture book ending. Oh, my.

(Still) On the Subject of Do-gooders…

It occurred to me how preachy my last post came across. Not the first or last time I rode the preacher’s revival bus. I must have been one in a past life, though for the life of me (this life) I don’t remember. But I do recall both my parents, at times, suggesting I get off the preaching pedestal. That I did this as a wee toddler is charming and alarming at once.

I have a vivid recollection of trying this maneuver on a red-faced lady who was already pouring her day’s frustration on a little girl. Buses in Jerusalem were often crammed-full of sweaty passengers, riding sardine-tin style, and elbowing their way at their stop to the exit door, sometimes with brute force. Working people getting home at the end of a day, or making their way to appointments downtown, experienced the bus ride as one more ordeal they had to survive.

 It was easy to yell at a child who was wedged between much taller people, yearning to breathe and possibly getting a pocket of air in the space created by a bag of tomatoes and salad greens. Leaning against groceries should be a no-no, so the lady was right to yell at that child.

By the way, that child was little me.

“I’m so, so sorry. Really,” I said. “Is the tip of my nose disturbing your eggplant?”

The lady was speechless.

To be truthful, I stole that line. The day before, someone explained to me that in England, unlike in Israel, people were immensely polite. I was given an example of a “vedy British” line that went something like-- “Pardon me. Is my eyeball disturbing the tip of your umbrella?”

I envied the British for this, so I single-handedly went about britiifying my town, starting with the huffy lady on the bus. The lady’s face turned a good match to the tomatoes in her bag, and my mother elbowed me. Hard.

That failed childish effort is an excuse for what I do today, preach and teach. I long to do good and I yearn for fun. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

I have some venerable company in this~~~

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

Mark Twain

Crazy Cat Ladies

Somehow I just know I will wind up a crazy cat lady.

How do I know?

When visiting an old friend, I discovered she had become one. Instead of rubbing my hands in desperation at her state of affairs and thinking how I might help her deal with her predicament, I found myself envious. She has fifteen cats she’s responsible for. I have only three. She is twelve cats richer, and twelve cats luckier than I am.

If you are one who finds one cat a cat too many, you will not understand. If you find each cat to be a precious masterpiece, you know what I mean. Just look at her deck on a balmy Saturday morning. Not all fifteen felines were there then, but those who were made it glorious.

Hemingway said, “One cat just leads to another.” I don't know if he liked cats. I suspect as a manly man he probably didn’t. You can't control cats, just marvel at their grace and perfection. Manly men usually prefer dogs. Dogs come when they’re called. Cats take a message and get back to you later. When they do get back to you, you feel either annoyed or honored. Only the latter, those who feel honored, would begin to understand this post.

The notion that cats are solitary is false. They live in colonies when they are feral, and make cozy families when they are household pets. Mine lick each other and cuddle with each other every day. My friend’s fifteen cats were civilized eating their breakfast. No pushing, shoving, or a hiss in sight. Just a decorous glorious feast. See?

I know. I’m doomed already.

Bursting Closets and Other Horrors

You've seen this in a movie, or a cartoon. The main character keeps shoving things into the closet so as to get them out of sight. The shoving act begins to look more like a strain to close the ominously reluctant closet door, until one final opening and- BURST! The contents spill in a giant heave, buoyed by the pressure created inside.

I think I saw it first in a Marx Brother’s movie, A Night at the Opera.

The contents look rather happy in this still photo. That’s because they are the Marx Brothers, always looking for contact. But I digress.

Just back from a much needed fortifying break, visiting family and dear friends in Israel, and not being in contact with my virtual life. This means that in another corner of this computer, call it the closet, is an Inbox that has not been opened in a month.

The last time I did this disconnect it was only for ten days, and almost five hundred messages poured in as soon as I opened that door. Actually, they rumbled in, making Ms. Computer hiss and shake with excitement for a full five minutes before it declared all messages had been received. It was three days of wading in and weeding out before I had sorted them and was in a position to answer any.

So now I’m afraid to click on that door.

You see, even if it is not obvious, I am a neat person. I can’t feel rested until things are in place.

Then something even more terrifying occurs to me. What if, instead of five hundred times three (gone for a month this time, simple arithmetic) which is a (gulp) one thousand and five hundred messages to sort, what if, just possibly…

There aren’t very many, or any?

Neatness has its limits. A house is only a showcase if no one really lives in it. A super neat closet is also one that isn’t used much.

I take a deep breath…

Phew. Fourteen hundred and twenty seven. That’s one thousand four hundred and twenty seven we-want-your attention notes, even if ninety percent are of the general not-really-you variety. Happy now.

I’ll see you again when –

Meanwhile-  
Happy Holidays!

Making Memories

My step mother wrote that she’s about to go on vacation with her grandchildren, to a lovely resort by the Mediterranean Sea. She asked about my childhood experiences in that very resort, where I spend a week every summer until I was twelve or so.

The name of the resort, Nachsholim, was then called Tantura. That was the name of the Arab village nearby, which has been leveled since then. When I was little (before 1967) there were many more abandoned Arab villages, standing empty since 1948, and in ruins. They stood as testament to who was once there. At some point most of the ruins disappeared as well, and they are no more.

The Kibbutz itself, which ran the vacation resort, is nearby. The accommodations were much more modest than they are now. Guests paid very little to stay in the original Kibbutz wood huts, and eat three meals a day in the original old communal dining room. I remember frogs in the shower, lots of them. There was no hot water, and the frogs frolicked in maniacal dances on the unfinished cement floors.

In the earlier years, until I was seven, my father was still with us. I remember that we had to take the old train from Jerusalem, and get off in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Then an old kibbutznik would come with a horse and carriage. Not the chivalrous kind you see in New York’s Central Park, but an old creaking hard carriage with an even older horse. I remember sitting in front and watching the horse defecate as we rode. They do it while walking, unlike a cat or a dog, who have the sense to stop when they have to go.

I also remember the nightly entertainment. I really looked forward to “Movie Night.” The “theater” was a white sheet hung from the trees. We sat under the stars and watched a projector screening onto it. If we were lucky, the projector didn't burn the film too many times and we got to see the whole movie to the end. Once, when the ending was too damaged, the kibbutznik who sat at the projector got up and told us the rest of the story.

Other nights there was communal folk dancing, or a magician, or a live singer. I remember one soprano who sang classical repertoire and was accompanied by a pianist. My father’s comment later was that if the singer could have been one tenth as good as the pianist, we might have been able to call it a real concert.

I also remember the really bad sunburn I always got the first day. No one heard of sunscreens then, and instead they coated us with tanning oils. Needless to say, with my complexion, real tanning was not going to happen.

We went there every summer that I can remember, until they changed to fancier accommodations and my mother didn't like the new prices or the new arrangements. I actually didn't, either. We did it the new-and-improved way only once. I was probably twelve then. I missed the “pioneer” feeling of the old huts. Like the village, Tantura was no more.

It seems impoverished as I think of it now, but I loved it all. My mother was more relaxed, and it was a happy time.

©Shelagh Duffett

I thanked my stepmother for reminding me of those days, and wished her a delightful time by the sea. Her grandkids, my niece and nephew, will build their own lovely memories of the place, and their days with her.

We’ll Never Have Unanimity-

And that is Why We Keep Writing

One of my least favorite speech clichés is, “When all is said and done.”

When, perchance, is that?

Busy folks know all is never done, even after it’s done. Writers know all is never said.

Biologist can’t agree on definitions for the word LIFE.

Psychologists can’t agree on what the word PERSONALITY means.

Anthropologists can’t agree on the meaning of the word CULTURE.

*Or the meaning of the word MEANING.*

And so we keep on talking, and telling, and writing. No matter what you think of Darwin’s theory, evolution of understanding is a never ending journey.