Paradigm

DP just provided me with the idea for this blog post. It was based on an email I wrote to him about Phaedrus liking midwestern winters, and me absolutely hating them. Just matter of fact-ly, I wrote to him, amongst other everyday things:

"He loves snow...because he thinks of snowball fights and snowmen...I hate snow, because I think of digging the car out of snow and icy driving conditions."

He wrote back, with the same phrase, now in quotes, and added to it, "This is a good example of paradigm." One would say that the paradigm shift is quite obvious, but I am glad he pointed it out, because I wasn't really thinking in terms of a larger picture. I was just talking about the reasons for loving and hating snow. Think of how many conflicts could be resolved if we just listened to another's reasons.

On the other hand, I did find a poem I had written about the first set of flurries which came on Christmas eve, a particular year. I am surprised I can't romanticize it any more. Why am I not posting it here? It was very heavily influenced by poetry I had been reading at that time, very middle-school-Britsh-poetry-textbook written by-a-child-admiring-nature type. Very substandard. But, I did find a better one (still of the same textbook genre, I warn you), which I'll put in a future post.

Which now makes me think, that even a change in paradigm from a personal point of view can be situational. I am quite sure I hate snow, and that I hated it, because I swore at nature every morning taking the car to work. But I like the seasons in North Carolina better, so I believed, in retrospect that I really hated Indiana winters. But I found not one but three poems on winter.
It seems that every feeling seems to take an exaggerated hue when you look at it in retrospect. And a change in paradigm is more glaring.