Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Words of Wisdom, apparently

If my teenage daughter thinks something I came up with is worth writing down, I guess I should offer it here...:

"There has to be a happy medium between blissful ignorance and paralyzing fear."

This could apply to many contexts, I suppose, including the one I talk about ad nauseum, our societal obsession with safety -- but it arose from a discussion of shoes. A blog entry I read about brown recluses prompted me to suggest that my kids shake their shoes out before putting them on. My daughter complained that she was now afraid to put on shoes. Hence my new-minted proverb-or-whatever.

The phrase "happy medium" always makes me think of the Happy Medium in A Wrinkle in Time -- a chronically cheerful clairvoyant.

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