Letter Two to my Future Self

Hello again,

I was just looking for something and ended up stumbling upon something I wrote about the etymology of "Hocus Pocus." If that link doesn't work, check webarchive.org.  I see that it has been saved twice since 2003 when I wrote it.  Just today, a new acquaintance read the previous letter and expressed her feeling that everyone should read it, so I am encouraged.  Thanks, Natalia!  What's amazing to me is that there seem to be parallels between my first letter and that write up about hocus pocus from 2003.

I sit here to ponder for a moment how I might express the parallels and I haven't found anything yet.  Okay, here's one: I treat each claim I make and its opposing claim with equal respect.  I did it in 2003 and I did it nine days ago.  It is my habit.  Okay, maybe not each claim, but at least the ones I think might be important.  I find great value in being precise and accurate.  There are often small benefits to it that we don't see until later, small benefits to treating opposing claims with the same amount of  respect, and also small benefits to being precise and accurate.  Precision and accuracy are different things.  I'll leave it to you to find the differences.

If you don't mind doing homework to get to know me better (or to more quickly regain the ground we lost if this brain already got re-integrated into the rest of the universe), you can visit my page on everything2.com and read through other entries I wrote.  Speaking of which, one of the impactful events in my life was "Nine Eleven."  I compiled a book about it, using the writings of others: Everything2 Remembers September 11, 2001.  In any case, I was inspired to write this letter when I rediscovered the everything2 website.  Here is the list of everything I wrote on that site.