Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person

Posted by Steve Smith on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Direct-conversation-tp3137870p3156512.html

Nick -

Dear Rikus, and all,

 

I think one of the hardest things about having been an academic is that while we are paid to have ideas, nobody else is paid to respond to them.  And so, academic writing is like dropping coins down an infinitely deep wishing well and listening for any evidence at all that the coin ever dropped.

That is why you should put lots of spin on them so they careen off of the walls all the way down...

 

I think it is safe to say that NEVER in my 30 to 40 years of developing these ideas have they received as much careful attention as they have in the last two weeks.  There is no greater kindness  -- no rarer kindness -- a colleague can do for an academic.  I am deeply in your collective debt.  I am humbled by it, actually.

What a melancholy-sweet thing to say.

          And here I thought you just felt like a Pinata!

- Steve

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