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One Eight

There is reason to refer to the masters over and over in life - in my case both to learn how to live and perhaps to write. Read this line from Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon after decades and it makes that much more sense now

 If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

There are so many lessons to learn from those lines. Being minimal in prose is no different that being minimal in your expression in life. There is always one word too many and the gesture that goes from being graceful to superfluous. Maybe there is a time to listen and only listen there is no response needed. The dignified way of expressing anger is perhaps to express only one-eight of it.I am sure those roles of writing extend in infinite other ways that I cannot yet understand. So it makes it worth reading such wisdom every decade.

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