Re: Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Xy

["M.W. Poirier" poirmw@xxxxxxxx]

 Evidently, assuming Cicero is that author of the words you
 attribute to him Michael, Cicero did not know the truth behind
 the Taoist parable cited below and attributed to the Taoist
 scholar Chuang Tzu.

Duke Huan of Ch'i was reading a book at the upper end of the hall; the
wheelwright was making a wheel at the lower end. Putting aside his mallet
and chisel, he called to the Duke and asked him what book he was reading.
'One that records the words of the Sages,' answered the Duke. 'Are those
Sages alive?' asked the wheelwright. 'Oh, no,' said the Duke, 'they are
dead.' 'In that case,' said the wheelwright, 'what you are reading can be
nothing but the lees and scum of bygone men.' 'How dare you, a
wheelwright, find fault with the book I am reading? If you can explain
your statement, I will let it pass. If not, you shall die.' 'Speaking as
a wheelwright,' he replied, 'I look at the matter in this way; when I am
making a wheel, if my stroke is too slow, then it bites deep but is not
steady; if my stroke is too fast, then it is steady, but does not go deep.
The right pace, neither slow nor fast, cannot get into the hand unless it
comes from the heart. It is a thing that cannot be put into words; there
is an art in it that I cannot explain to my son. This is why it is
impossible for me to let him take over my work, and here I am at the
age of seventy, still making wheels. In my opinion it must be the same
with the men of old. All that was worth handing on, died with them; the
rest, they put into their books. That is why I said that what you were
reading was the lees and scum of bygone men.


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On Sun, 25 Mar 2007, Michael Norman wrote:

> At 04:15 PM 3/25/2007, Harry Binswanger wrote:
> the point, for me, is to have a means of getting down (in a rough
> sense of "down") my thoughts at a faster speed than I can either type
> or write by hand--i.e., as fast as I can talk.
>
> Ah, Harry. I'm not sure he said it, but if he did Cicero would be
> proud of you: Vox audit perit litera scripta manet ("The spoken word
> never stays; the written world never perishes," [a liberal
> translation, I think].)
>
> michael norman
>