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Scientifictionist, vol. 1, issue 5, June-July 1946
Page 1
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OF MANY THINGS and some a little more than others by Phil Schumann THEORETICALLY, the basic aim of any printed matter (unless fiction) is to present the truth. A columnist, in writing his own thoughts, keeps these principles in mind: presenting both the facts and his opinion of those facts. The main thing is to bring the truth to the reader. Sometimes this truth is pleasant. Sometimes it has a pain that eats into you until you try to ignore it. But it is truth nevertheless and to ignore truth does not remove it. Instead, it can very well continue to grow until it is so much larger than you, that you will be borne under by it -- destroyed -- reduced to a handful of pasty powder snuffed away on the passing wind. If the roof of a man's house is on fire and he is in the basement, does he say to himself, "Well, it's inconvenient, but I'll ignore it, and so I'll feel better"! No, he doesn't, because he knows that it is his house and that every puff of flame is destroying something that belongs to him -- and that it won't be so easily replaced. Second, he knows that if he should ignore that blaze above his head, sooner or later the burning ruins will fall on him. His life beign a valuable thing to him, he doesn't ignore the truth and does all he can to put out that fire as quickly as possible -- before it grows too big for him or anyone else to extinguish. But what does that mean to us! It means a lot of things. Suppose that man, in his house, took a bucket of water to the roof and threw it over the fire. Suppose there were a few smoldering embers left glowing, and he ignored them because they were "too small" to do any damage. Ah! But then what if these embers grow until they blaze up again and the fire reaches further down into the house? That takes a little more time because he has forgotten about the embers, and he waits until he smells smoke. Unfortunately there really was a fire, a good one, and it has just taken a lot of people to put it out...so many people that some were swallowed up in the flames, and some were left with permanent scars. But there are a few embers still glowing, and they live -- sure they live, and they can still grow too big for us and can still burn us in our cozy basement. Are we going to let it do that! Are we going to ignore the truth, merely because that truth is uncomfortable and we'd rather forget it! Of course we'd rather forget it...who wouldn't! But ignoring the truth does mean that the truth ceases to exist. We can create a new truth as so very the other one will vanish.
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OF MANY THINGS and some a little more than others by Phil Schumann THEORETICALLY, the basic aim of any printed matter (unless fiction) is to present the truth. A columnist, in writing his own thoughts, keeps these principles in mind: presenting both the facts and his opinion of those facts. The main thing is to bring the truth to the reader. Sometimes this truth is pleasant. Sometimes it has a pain that eats into you until you try to ignore it. But it is truth nevertheless and to ignore truth does not remove it. Instead, it can very well continue to grow until it is so much larger than you, that you will be borne under by it -- destroyed -- reduced to a handful of pasty powder snuffed away on the passing wind. If the roof of a man's house is on fire and he is in the basement, does he say to himself, "Well, it's inconvenient, but I'll ignore it, and so I'll feel better"! No, he doesn't, because he knows that it is his house and that every puff of flame is destroying something that belongs to him -- and that it won't be so easily replaced. Second, he knows that if he should ignore that blaze above his head, sooner or later the burning ruins will fall on him. His life beign a valuable thing to him, he doesn't ignore the truth and does all he can to put out that fire as quickly as possible -- before it grows too big for him or anyone else to extinguish. But what does that mean to us! It means a lot of things. Suppose that man, in his house, took a bucket of water to the roof and threw it over the fire. Suppose there were a few smoldering embers left glowing, and he ignored them because they were "too small" to do any damage. Ah! But then what if these embers grow until they blaze up again and the fire reaches further down into the house? That takes a little more time because he has forgotten about the embers, and he waits until he smells smoke. Unfortunately there really was a fire, a good one, and it has just taken a lot of people to put it out...so many people that some were swallowed up in the flames, and some were left with permanent scars. But there are a few embers still glowing, and they live -- sure they live, and they can still grow too big for us and can still burn us in our cozy basement. Are we going to let it do that! Are we going to ignore the truth, merely because that truth is uncomfortable and we'd rather forget it! Of course we'd rather forget it...who wouldn't! But ignoring the truth does mean that the truth ceases to exist. We can create a new truth as so very the other one will vanish.
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