{"id":2443,"date":"2009-02-16T19:53:06","date_gmt":"2009-02-17T00:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2443"},"modified":"2009-02-16T19:53:06","modified_gmt":"2009-02-17T00:53:06","slug":"in-which-i-learn-once-again-the-wrong-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2443","title":{"rendered":"In which I learn, once again, the wrong lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did my big presentation, \u201cThe Two Olafs,\u201d<\/strong> at a retreat in Wisconsin this past weekend. Not a religious retreat. It\u2019s a gathering of academics with Scandinavian specialties, some of their students, and a few other people who are just interested in Scandinavian culture. Once a year they get together at a nature preserve in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

The experience was both good and bad. I think I did as good a job with the PowerPoint talk as I\u2019ve ever done, and the audience was attentive and appreciative, from all I could tell. I sold a few copies of my books, and got the nicest speaker\u2019s fee I\u2019ve ever pulled down.<\/p>\n

The second day wasn\u2019t great for me, however. I felt I\u2019d been keeping to myself too much, which (as you know) is one of my besetting sins. So I determined to join the organizers for breakfast, and try to be part of the conversation.<\/p>\n

I heard a number of things I disagreed with, but kept quiet and listened, attempting to understand and evaluate the things that were being said. But when it descended into plain Republican-bashing, I left the table with the words, \u201cHe never said that. He said he didn\u2019t like <\/i>broccoli,\u201d and went back to my quiet area with my book. Then, when everyone else went off to see a movie, the final event of the retreat, I packed up Mrs. Hermanson and drove home without saying goodbye to anyone.<\/p>\n

This is one of those frustrating things. On the rare occasions when I make a determined effort to move outside my comfort zone, I so often end up sorry I even tried. You know the old saying, \u201cBetter to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt\u201d?<\/i> My own best motto seems to be, \u201cBetter to keep to myself and be thought a jerk, than to talk to people and remove all doubt.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a popular idea that all a shy person has to do is take the risk of talking to people, and he\u2019ll soon discover that his fears are groundless.<\/p>\n

I have very little evidence of that in my own experience.
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I did my big presentation, \u201cThe Two Olafs,\u201d at a retreat in Wisconsin this past weekend. Not a religious retreat. It\u2019s a gathering of academics with Scandinavian specialties, some of their students, and a few other people who are just interested in Scandinavian culture. Once a year they get together at a nature preserve in … Continue reading In which I learn, once again, the wrong lesson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}