My blog's title

I have been mulling over the name of this blog for 4 or five days, about as long as I’ve been writing it.

I thought of a few things, and as is perfectly obvious to all, I found the thing that feels true and perfect to me, and it is also an homage to an author and book that I love. 

And because I am at least as self-centered as the best of you (and possibly far-far-far more narcissistic than most of you), I will share this process with you.

So first, I shared my own initial ideas with a group of close friends, friends, and women I don’t know too well but absolutely respect and a total jerk. 

(I am absolutely kidding! I am totally laughing my ass off here because of how ridiculous the idea that ANY one of you is total jerk! I PROMISE, it is not you, because it is not true. I just thought it was funny.)

These ideas were:

I came in halfway through

Reach for the sky

tap dancing on jello

other suggestions?

And of the lot I was most fond of the last line, which I liked even though it was a request for comment, and not an idea I conceived of as the name of my blog.

I got some good suggestions, which I ultimately had to reject, because I didn’t feel that moment of resonance, that moment of bliss, that moment that feels like understanding, that moment of perfect. (I was covered in bees before covered in bees was cool.)

For most purposes, and in fact for most of my blog postings, good enough is actually good enough. Perfection might be a good goal. I’m not sure. But I’m not going to bother shooting for perfection 99% of the time. Good enough is what I’m shooting for. That might be an even better blog title than this one, the one I love, but since I don’t love it I’m not picking it. 

But for my title, the name I share these thoughts with you under, I wanted perfection, even if perfection is unattainable. Waiting for years would not be a good idea. But I was writing anyway, and I’ve saved it all, and it hasn’t even been a week, and nobody is really missing out because I waited. 

But I guarantee that I would have waited no longer than a month before picking something without this moment of perfection, because moving on is always more important than the absolute perfect bliss of perfection. But I digress. (That would also be a great name for this blog title. But I don’t love it as much either.)

I must thank Eric Flint, for his book Mother of Demons. I love this book so much. Definitely top shelf. If I could bother to maintain my own personal library of the books I love as well as the books that I am reading (which I can’t do, but don’t regret much).

This book, I love. But is obviously not for everyone because my brother, Darby Grove, recently deceased, and one of my favorite people ever, and one with whom I shared a vast number of interests and tastes, could never get into it. Isn’t that always a bummer? When you try to share the stuff that is obviously great with people who are obviously great, and they just can’t get into it, or worse, don’t get it? But I digress.

In this book, a colonization ship reaches a new planet, and crashes. The humans meet the aliens, the aliens meet the humans, stuff happens. Some aliens have a new religion. They haven’t decided what to call it yet, even. The religion has principles of compassion and practical ideas on how to live together, and good stuff that pretty much every religion has abundantly, but it doesn’t, as far as I remember, really go into many spiritual issues, like life after death and “is there a god?”.

The sage or apostle of the religion was constantly trying to erode the believers’ tendency to commit worship. And remind them that the important thing, the really important thing, was not who did what, or what answers seem best, but the really important thing was The Question.

And when I thought of that this morning, it totally resonated with me. I was ringing from head to toe, metaphorically speaking. Accurately speaking, I got that feeling of perfection, stopped moving and savored it for a moment, and moved on to get through the boring background details of sharing my words with you all, because I am driven to do so.

I must also thank Lois McMaster Bujold, because of something one of her characters shared in one of her novels, I can’t remember which one. The guy was saying that the professor in some engineering class at the military academy never bothered to change the questions on the final exam, because the answers kept changing. Because yes. They totally do.

Also, sorry about the typos and errors. I have more stuff to mull over. I have more stuff to write. I don’t like looking like a fool, and I can edit quickly. My sentences are long and rambling and (I’m sorry) sometimes unclear because of this. I am personally horrified to find that I can no longer use its and it’s without actually thinking about it. I used to do better. But I have more stuff to mull over, and more stuff to write. And sometimes I have to get dressed. and sometimes I have to do laundry. and sometimes I have to cook. 

I actually think it is important that we do things things for ourselves (not that I can afford to have someone else to do them for me). It will cut into my writing time, as will are the other essential things I have to do for myself and others. But I can totally share my thoughts with you, imperfect and somewhat unedited, and let the chips fall where they may. I can do that. I am. And hopefully I will continue to do so, because I love it.