tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8764797702568335112.post6245524605984802784..comments2024-03-01T10:23:18.379-08:00Comments on Language, Literacy and Storytelling: Facebook, Boxes, Possibilities and IncivilityDonna Washington - Storytellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11041171044081636636noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8764797702568335112.post-81906295399303463382013-11-15T08:22:14.915-08:002013-11-15T08:22:14.915-08:00Thanks for stopping by my site, and I am glad you ...Thanks for stopping by my site, and I am glad you missed the dust up as well! This is only the second time I've ever blocked anyone! Yay to seeing my CD in a library! I hope we have a chance to share stories somewhere down the road.Donna Washington - Storytellerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11041171044081636636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8764797702568335112.post-50375121176629246672013-11-03T20:22:07.436-08:002013-11-03T20:22:07.436-08:00Glad I missed the facebook dust-up but got to rea...Glad I missed the facebook dust-up but got to read your two blog posts today, both of which are reasoned, logical and encouraging. Your stories and insights are valuable. I read a lot on facebook and on blogs but don't necessarily comment. I always love your postings and I'm glad you're willing to stand your ground. You do us all a favor by blocking someone who is insulting and baiting -- they aren't there to converse but to stop conversation and any story that doesn't fit their ideology. Glad you don't fit his and you're telling such wonderful stories. By the way, I saw your CD Fun, Foolery and Folktales at the Kenton Library in Portland Oregon just last week. You're stories are soaring around.Joy Murrayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08678270785660037672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8764797702568335112.post-40008065545422340922013-11-03T16:12:56.690-08:002013-11-03T16:12:56.690-08:00I think that what you are talking about is not get...I think that what you are talking about is not getting inside of boxes so much as choosing what you want to do with yourself. Being stuck in a box is about following a path that is prescribed for you by someone else. You don't have to be a doctor unless you want to be one. Explore, let the farthest reaches of your imagination and skill take you where you want to go. You have more choices than you imagine, but you are the one who decides what to do with those choices. Transitions are hard. Transitions make it difficult to decide where to go or how to go. As long as you are making decisions based on your needs and wants, and not because someone has made you settle for something, you are free to move around. Don't get trapped inside a box, look up in twenty years and discover that you are living someone else's dream and not your own. That isn't likely to make for a life you will enjoy living.<br />Donna Washington - Storytellerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11041171044081636636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8764797702568335112.post-28545567471016219432013-11-03T14:04:37.204-08:002013-11-03T14:04:37.204-08:00In the interest of conversation, posting the comme...In the interest of conversation, posting the comment here as well as on FB:<br />As many have already said - great post!<br /><br />I enjoyed your discussion of boxes - I'm in a bit of transition/at a cross-road in my life, and not really sure where I'll end up or in what direction I'll head. To work with the boxes metaphor - I think I simultaneously feel both inside and outside the box, or that one path would be an act of stepping in while the other would be remaining out [of the box], but perhaps this reinforces your idea of the limitations of thinking in terms of boxes at all.<br /><br />I really loved this: "I thought about the people who were 'brains', 'pretty', 'jocks', and I began to wonder if we sold them and ourselves short in life," especially the part about selling both others and ourselves short. An individual is multifaceted, and it's hard to see the whole rather than to focus too much on just one or two of those aspects, in part perhaps because those aspects can at times be in conflict and so it can be easier to reduce them to their fundamentals in order to wrap our mind around it. But yes, boxes, in their convenience can lead to forgetting humanity and the complexities of an individual.<br /><br />Hmm, now, I'm wondering about the nature of metaphors in general (wondering if maybe there's a better replacement for the concept of boxes), and it seems that part of what makes a metaphor a useful tool for explaining a concept/event/whatever is the way it reduces and simplifies. So, perhaps the problem is not the metaphor but the metaphor taken too far, i.e. believing that life really is as simple as all that.<br /><br />As another side note, perhaps, I don't think I fully realized that children were thought of as being either inside or outside the box - I've certainly heard of the idea of "thinking outside the box," but that's different, no?Cassie Cushinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02718103400234288281noreply@blogger.com