The power of words to terrify

November 19, 2010

A very disrupted flight back overnight. I got to National to discover the flight to Chicago was delayed, so I was hurried to a taxi for Dullas,rushed through security for a flight to Miami and then tore between gates in one of those little motorized trolleys to catch the last flight out to Heathrow. It all worked out in the end, but it was a close run thing. It’s essential if you travel a lot not to let yourself get stressed. It all works out in the end, you need to be helpful and persuasive, and use your knowledge of routings (experienced travelers often know more than the agents) to help things out. The more you travel the more relaxed you get about this.

Part of this is keeping your mind occupied and I have been running through Alan Garner’s books on the iPod. Round about the time I was rushing through the tunnels of Miami airport I was with Susan and Colin in their escape from the Earldelving. Now if you haven’t read The Wierdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath then you have a treat in store. I was first terrified by this book, and the Earldelving scene as a child when it was read on Children’s Hour on the Radio. Radio is far more terrifying than television if you have any sort of an imagination. I won’t ruin it for you by describing the events in question (if you want to know see this excellent review) but the quality of the writing, its matter of fact descriptions and complete rejection of sensationalism all contribute to one of the great children’s novels of all time; add the wonderful Owl Service , and Elidor to your reading list while you are at it.

Good writing for children, always appeals to adults, it allows meaning to emerge on multiple levels. It’s why I think authors such as Enid Blyton and Roland Dahl are so poor; they dumn down rather than reaching up

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

About the Cynefin Company

The Cynefin Company (formerly known as Cognitive Edge) was founded in 2005 by Dave Snowden. We believe in praxis and focus on building methods, tools and capability that apply the wisdom from Complex Adaptive Systems theory and other scientific disciplines in social systems. We are the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world.
ABOUT USSUBSCRIBE TO NEWSLETTER

Cognitive Edge Ltd. & Cognitive Edge Pte. trading as The Cynefin Company and The Cynefin Centre.

© COPYRIGHT 2024

< Prev

KMWorld - the resilent organisation

The first keynote I gave at KM world over a decade was one of the ...

More posts

Next >

Live with it, don’t pretend you can avoid it

Dilbert is always interesting, but every now and then we get a strip which is ...

More posts

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram