Somewhere, recently, I either heard or read “I have written and erased a hundred sentences.” I remember the quote; I wish I could remember the context. All is not lost, however, for this is where imagination comes in. What reasons can we imagine that someone would write and erase a hundred sentences?
· Sometimes we need to practice saying something before we know what we mean or want to say. We may not get it quite right the first time.
· Meaning is dialogical and contextual; it emerges in the space between. It must be articulated – even silently – in order to exist.
· We doubt our own wisdom or our place to speak, and silence ourselves.
· We fear being wrong or disagreed with more than we fear silencing ourselves.
· We have felt the pain of not being received and debate whether it’s worth the risk of trying again.
· There are some things that cannot be said.
Writing an erasing a hundred sentences might be prudent, measured, a sign of wise restraint, or cowardly. It might be tactical or a sign of confusion. Whatever can be speculated or understood about those one hundred sentences may be illuminating to the author.
What really matters to the rest of us is sentence 101.
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