"(Always wrote the paper first, then went back and teased out the outline.) "

After I went to bed, I was thinking about not only the issue, but the very process of expressing myself in this forum...

When *I* was in school, I wrote papers 'live'...that is, with a small typewriter on a board across my lap in a big armchair. I typed slowly and thought the same way. It might take me an hour to do a short sentence, and I hated the very idea of 'drafts'. I 'usually' composed the whole thing in my head as I went, even if I had notes to guide the basic organization.
It made me 'uneasy' to put down on paper ideas which were not carefully worded and organized....even when I knew I had the option of re-doing it before handing it in.
So...you see my dilemma here? A forum like this runs 'mostly' on fairly rapid give & take....quickish responses. If you take 2 days to compose a completely edited and qualified response, the others may have gone on to other things and decided you can't cope with their insights. ☺
   You can see all those parenthetical qualifications in my screeds as I try to avoid being misunderstood...and still it often doesn't come across. When Janie says, " I often come away from reading your exchanges with Bill with a sense that I understand what he is expressing very differently from either of you.", I have to wonder if *I* could have done a better job, or whether there's a real 'block' in 'some' readers (*grin*) who don't even want to consider certain paths (not agree, just see the point!)

I used to have a philosophy prof., who, in 2-3 hr. graduate seminars, would start stringing together LONG patterns of interconnected explanations, and then when the class was over, would look frustrated, because he was interrupted and hadn't FINISHED connecting all the threads of ideas. Boy, do I know how he felt!
All that being said, I am actually getting better..and this forum has been good for me to watch MYSELF as I work out what I DO think about some things. (It is often the case that only by explaining stuff to others can we clarify the details of our own ideas.)

Anyway... I wanted to get this 'into the record', just in case I get run over by a bus this afternoon. ;>(

We can go back to the topic at hand...if you wish... and I will 'try' to be a bit more concise and be sure I am not just issuing blanket denials of favorite beliefs...

(Durn it, Janie... you would have done well as a philosopher, even though you probably do more direct good where you are...thanks for chiming in.)