Ardith Hinton wrote to James Bradley, "People...  1C." on 05-27-05 11:26

 JB>  If my life has a soundtrack, it'd be pretty convoluted! <-|

 AH>            In some ways I guess mine would be too.  I can
 AH> see in retrospect how it all fits together, though, like a
 AH> musical theme & variations....  :-)

Ya, variations on a theme for me. Same old story, different smell. 0-8

 JB>  Shortly after graduation, I started listening to divergent
 JB>  musical influences. (I'm deliberately keeping this fluffy.

 AH>            Seems appropriate, at least in the SURVIVOR echo....  :-)

Don't sell this echo short. I just have phases where I dabble into dark waters,
and others where I prefer a brook.

 AH>            Understood.  Handel's WATER MUSIC, for example, sounded
 AH> pleasant but bland to me until I'd heard it from the middle of the
 AH> clarinet section.  I find the interplay of harmonies
 AH> fascinating now.  It's more difficult to hear things like
 AH> that on recordings even when you know what they're supposed
 AH> to sound like. The same applies to the tone qualities of
 AH> various instruments... another aspect of music which I
 AH> particularly enjoy.  I prefer to be where the action is.  :-
 AH> ))

I've heard some pretty amazing playback systems in my days, and yet... You
really find out how inefficient they really are the more you learn about them.

 AH>            Same here.  I like Gilbert & Sullivan, though... [chuckle].

They did The Mikado, right? Wouldn't that be classified as opera-lite, or
pop-opera? I saw that play done by a High-School, who did rather well at it.

 JB>  Well, how can you teach a person who would prefer to
 JB>  remain ignorant?


 AH>            In many cases it's virtually impossible... you
 AH> can review the lesson a hundred times & get nowhere.  In
 AH> the words of one of my former colleagues:

 AH>         You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink;
 AH>         You can lead a kid to learning, but you cannot make him think.

I wonder if the masculine reference was by inclusion, or experience. 

 AH>            If you can recognize & make good use of a
"teachable moment"
 AH> you may have to say it only once.  When they ask you a direct
 AH> question or say something like "Huh??" that may be the
 AH> opportunity you're looking for.  On rare occasions I've
 AH> managed to elicit the "Huh??" response by doing something
 AH> unexpected, then seized the moment while everybody's jaws
 AH> were still hanging around their knees. I've also had a
 AH> certain amount of success with the "snappy comeback"...
 AH> another way of using the element of surprise to interrupt a
 AH> train of thought & possibly get it onto a different track.
 AH> In general, however, people learn when they are ready &
 AH> motivated to do so.  And we may not be aware of the
 AH> reason(s) for their resistance... there may be more to a
 AH> particular situation than meets the eye.

 AH>            Walking out on a person could be another way of interrupting
 AH> a train of thought.  I'm glad to hear you were able to patch
 AH> things up with your friend after walking out on him,
 AH> anyway!  In my experience time out... like the snappy
 AH> comeback... is often misused.  People say they want to
 AH> teach somebody a lesson, for example, then leave them to
 AH> guess what they must have done wrong.  Thinking back to my
 AH> days as a student teacher... it's not always easy to
 AH> verbalize one's goals, but it's important that both you &
 AH> your friend understand what they are. You want to inform
 AH> him, not to punish him or to score points.  And the
 AH> followup is also important if you value the friendship &
 AH> would like to continue it.  :-)

No matter how functional, or dysfunctional two people are, and how right or
wrong one is during a dispute, how many times is a person likely to fess up to
being the idiot in a quarrel? The heat of the moment is always going to find
two superior opinions of themselves, sans a rare person. I guess because I am
not that good at heated moments, I try to time *myself* out, where I can take
stock of the situation and garner if I have a leg to stand on. 

Then I try to asses if a round-two is going to progress to a solution, or add
gas to a flame. To gauge how renewed correspondence might be interpreted is the
tricky part in my eyes, and the challenge to interpersonal skills. I suppose it
boils down to cost/benefit.

Unlike Nash, I still have faith in a win-win situation. The tricky part is
finding others who believe it is possible.
... James
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