Rats

When I was a teenager, I liked to talk with my uncle about his early days training as a clinical psychologist. We would talk about the different approaches and schools. The fact that the mind had so many ways of coming at it fascinated me, and I read around, ranging and rooting for ideas. One day, we started talking about behaviorism and B. F. Skinner.

My uncle said, "He was a failed writer. He wanted to be a novelist, you know. But he had nothing to say. So he went back to the lab with his rats. Much more comfortable with the rats."

My uncle was teasing me, because he knew my perfectionism, my striving, sitting on the stairs with my composition notebook and my fountain pen. But attempts at perfection in writing do not create diamonds; they create a blank.

So, here I am before a blank blog page, and I ask myself: do I need rats, or can I grow words out of wine?

I put a picture of Causse Marines' Gaillac above, because I have always found it amusing and inexplicable that they should boldly state that no badgers are allowed in, on, or around the wine. I think I should use this as an allegory and impetus to avoid creeping beasts and get on with it.