So, what's been going on?  Things have been pretty busy lately.  I've been in a rather philosophical mood, so I've done more thinking than writing lately. I tried to sit down every day since last Wednesday and write something, but something always comes up.  Thanks to Lonnie there was something here in between then and now, so that's a plus.  And now it's back to Wednesday, which means that Lonnie will find something else to rake Gene Lyons over the coals with.  I always look forward to Lonnie's rants.  Whether you agree or disagree with his viewpoint, he never fails to make me laugh about something. 

    But that was last week, and this is now.  What do I have planned for this week?  Well, I finally finished my letter to a former employee who's in prison.  It took me a couple of weeks to get it written to my satisfaction.  She was a pretty good employee, but she always had some problems with showing up on time.  As an employer, I cannot emphasize the importance of showing upon time for work.  If you want to get ahead in life, you have to show that you want to work. 

    Too many times, I've seen people who I know are capable of doing a good job get passed over for promotions or good jobs.  Why?  Because they had problems getting to work on time, calling in sick, or even not showing up at all.  Think about what kind of message you are sending to your employer if you don't care enough about your job to even show up for it.  Many people want more responsibility, but they don't want to work for it.  And that's missing the point;  if you want more responsibility, you have to be more responsible. 

    The best way to illustrate this is by looking at the world of fiction.  Whatever objections you may have for the world of fiction, there is no denying that some part of fiction writing has a grounding in reality.  This is hard for some people to grasp.  They think that "fiction" means "unreal; not based in any way in reality".  That is not true.  Fiction means that the people and/or events that are depicted did not really happen.  See the difference?  In the first, the set is imaginary.  In the second, the dressing in the set is real, but the actions of the people and perhaps the people themselves may or may not be reality.  Let me refine this a little bit more.

    Suppose you are sitting in an auditorium.  Before you there is a stage.  If we were looking at the first instance, the world where fiction has no grounding in reality, then there is nothing on stage that is real.  You may see a couch, but it isn't real.  You may see a person, but they are not real.  Something may happen, but it didn't really.

    Now suppose you are sitting in a slightly different auditorium.  Again, before you is a stage.  This time, however, we are looking at the second instance.  That is, we are looking at the world where fiction has some grounding in reality. 

    The play, if you will, is a representation of what "really" happened.  Perhaps, in the reality that is being represented, two people argued which caused one of them to kill the other.  Is a faithful transcription of what was said necessary to our understanding of what happened?  Is it absolutely necessary to have every single word right in our transcription of our play in order to be accurate to the reality? 

    Right now, it's 3 in the morning, and I have to be at work in about 4 hours.  I'll probably post this as soon as I get in, so let me put this away for a little bit while I think of some examples that will better illustrate my point.