FROM MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL JUNE 17, 1999

What about our speech

makes us middlewestern? It is not the drawl of the deep south, though Kansas has a twang, and Missouri. Perhaps it is figures of speech in our talk, reflecting our manner of thought. Where would one hear a range of middlewesterners speaking without self-consciousness? Has such a study already been done somewhere? Where?

A cool, blue sky. Sun on dew. Gloaming shadows on the west side of things.

West of Highway 44 a mile north of the village a field of peas has been harvested already. I saw the pea viners there last evening. In the next field some of the alfalfa has been baled.

The fields roll away beautiful and green. I have been raised to think that scrubland is unproductive, haven't I? Miners have been raised to think we must extract mineral resources. The picture of the world we are born onto is the world we live in. Many times that picture is only a set of common agreements and assumptions which have no basis outside themselves. How does one escape his pre-conceptions? Question everything?

Comments

[Peter]

Beautiful with the withrawing field: the dew, the shadows, the peas and alfalfa, and then just the green rolling away. I'm in the car with you, the view and the reverie taking their natural courses.

Maybe scrubland is unproductive. Maybe the assumption you were raised in is more like mine: unproductive is bad.

[Tom Montag]

Hi, Peter--Isn't "unproductive is bad" a tenet of Western civilization in general? That only that which is useful is worthwhile? Sometimes that seems to be a central principle of our existence. It seems there's a corollary which goes with it, too: Only that which is worth money is valuable.

[Dave]

"How does one escape his pre-conceptions? Question everything?" Not necessarily. The important thing is to always question oneself, I think. For example, I can think of several plausible arguments against the foregoing assertion right off the bat...

[Tom Montag]

"Question everything" has come to be, in actual practice for me, a matter of picking up the rug to see what has been swept under it, moving the curtain to see who is behind it. Not so much "question" as in "Question Authority;" rather, I'm beginning to stand before things with some combination of awe and ignorance, and this pushes me to look beyond the surface and the obvious. Ignorance is always a good excuse for asking questions, and I have found that really want to help you when they see that you are seriously interested.

It is an evolving practice. By the end, if I'm fortunate, I may be far enough along to say, "Oh, that's what they mean by 'walking into the light.' What is that?"