What's in a Name?

Just a note here about who is who. I decided to go with initials, a la Victorian novel style (you know, the type of book that would give the year as 20--), but I realize this can sometimes be confusing. I think the people who read this blog and the people who are in the blog are essentially the same audience, and although I assume you will all know you who are, I will try and differentiate between you all.

For instance, there is J, the main J that anyone who knows me knows who that J would be, and he's always just J. Any other J's - and there are at least two I can think of - will get an initial, like JR, my songwriting solar-powered friend, and JD, our recent houseguest. Or take D - there's the D I wrote about already, and DS my relative, and DW my mentor and so on. You get the idea.

And everyone else will get something to designate themselves as themselves, but don't expect me to keep track of it and be consistent. In the end, we will all know who I was talking about. As the great Noah Baumbach said, "We all know what we mean." That's the idea, anyway - to all know what we mean.

I must admit, communication keeps coming up as theme - what it is, how to do it, how to make it better. It's the incredible force that builds bridges, breaks up marriages, elects presidents - it causes a lot of the world's ills and solves a lot of the world's problems. It creates new religions and puts men to death. Communication - a big topic. In my own way, I am tackling it here....and you, by reading (a listener, an audience, a receiver - a crucial component of communication) are participating in it. I tackle it everywhere I go, and it seems to have an endless need for improvement everywhere.

As JD just said, "good communication requires effort. The difference between good communication and bad communication is in fact the effort...although you can put a lot of effort into it, and it can still be bad!" True enough. GOOD communication certainly requires great effort...and good intentions, assuming positive intent from the other person. The intention is the thing. I have a family alter where we can write our intentions, later to be offered up to the universe to be manifested (or not, as appropriate). Well, you start where you are, and you use the tools that seem to work. And you take it one world at a time.

JD also asked me earlier what a blog is. I've often wondered, despite the fact that I have one. He came up with a pretty good definition: "It's a letter to the world." So, thanks for reading, world....