Vol 5 . . . No 3 . . . November, 1995
Truth and insight often hide where we might least expect to find them.
If we limit our search to all the "obvious" places, we are blinded by our prejudices.
Most times we embark upon research, we do not know what we do not know.
We know so little about the question (if it is an essential question), that we have no idea of where we might begin or what is missing or where we should look.
Lack of knowledge rarely inhibits the planning urge in this culture. Rather than "mucking about" in the topic for an extensive period in order to figure out the issues, we sit down and build a nice outline with Roman Numerals or a list of hypotheses.
Mucking about means lifting up slime-covered rocks to discover what crawls below. The Web as tidal pool!
Mucking about means sifting through the info-garbage to figure out what is valuable and worth keeping. The Web as garbage bin!
Mucking about means skimming and learning enough to figure out what is missing and what more needs to be understood or found out. It means letting one's intuition rule while one's reason and logical capacities complain. Mucking about requires a suspension of critical judgment, a letting go and a letting down.
Effective mucking about calls for an open mind and a roving eye. Suspension of assumptions. And patience!
More than half of those who reply to the "From Now On" subscription response letter confess that they cannot remember how they found the site. They were obviously "mucking about."
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