Fryday 18 June 1999
Event of the day: I'm now a member of the Open Pages web ring. Seems the Mighty Kymm has acted with superspeed here ... she must have added me at about the same time that I posted my yesterdiary claiming that I was not yet a member. Well, anyway, isn't it wonderful? Now I'm going to be famous. Just like the more than 1000 others with lower numbers...
When I was still in high school and there around, I loved going
to the blackboard. I like attention, as long as I know what I
am doing. And I guess after 40 years, I am starting to get into
being me. I may very nearly be good at it, now.
I like being an instructor, too. I don't think I would have been
a good teacher for children. But I do think I am a good teacher
for adults. And since it's only part of my job, I don't get fed
up with it. And of course, I absolutely love the energy flow
of small groups of people - as long as I am the center of it,
of course...
I think the need for attention is one of the very basic human needs. I have read that babies who don't get attention sicken and die, even if they are fed and kept clean. And so it continues ... solitary confinement is regarded as torture, even if no physical pain is inflicted on the prisoner. Only among humans can a human be human, as the saying goes.
Of course, as we grow, this soon becomes a two-way thing. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the great attraction of romance and actually even sex: The focused attention that one can give and get. (I hate the expression "give and take", by the way. Sometimes it fits, but it is never more than a second best solution. To give and get is so much better, at least when we talk about positive things.) Let us face it, it is not very romantic if you're kissing with someone and they suddenly start talking about the tax return, or the roof that needs painting.
Actually I don't consider myself a very attention-craving person. I can spend days in a row without seeing or hearing anyone. I used to hole up with my typewriter, now it's the computer. And the puter has made me more communicative, in a way. While I used to write pretty much for the fireplace, now at least I share some. And I can easily read what other people write, too. People like me, more or less. (Probably less, but at least we belong to the same species. I think. The definition of species, according to my old teacher, was that members of the same species could have fertile offspring. In the case of me and humans, this has not yet been verified...)