It’s been a couple of weeks now since I’ve managed to create a little space to blog. I hated to leave the previous conversations hanging, but there we have it. I also write for pay, and duty called.
Grant McCracken has created a charming trilogy on How to Blog Like an Anthropologist. I have GOT to get a photo of my refrigerator posted here (a good chance to figure out how to sync the digital camera and the blog). But I was most taken with his paean to what I call the Hmmm moment--
In short, the blog entry begins with that little ping of surprise that comes from the stray remark that will not herd, the datum that defies expectation, the observation that does not fit. Most of the time, most of us let this slide. There is no ping of surprise, because we are dumb as posts. Or there is a ping but we don’t do what Sahlins did: stop and ask “what just happened. How did the world just resist my expectations?”
These little pings of surprise, the small moments of “hmmmm,” are what I’m in search of here. Hmmmms can often lead to “whats?!” But if one is fortunate they can also lead to “Ahas!” And in a moment of grace, the hmmm can lead to Silent Awe.