Two Apples Can't Make Love, Sorry

What I like about photography is the unexpected. If you shoot lots of pictures, as I do, sometimes you get a surprise. I wasn't trying to capture apples, actually.

It's the same with words. You don't always know what you might be able to do with words when you're writing them. First, you don't know who will read them. Second, you don't know what they will draw from them if they do read them. Third, you don't know, really, what you want to happen.

It is an act of faith every single time that you write, especially in this era, with blogging. For all we know, this will turn out to have been an interlude, and blogs will be replaced with other forms -- if so, hopefully more lucrative, which would not be difficult when your financial reward is precisely...zero.

But the emotional reward can be significant from writing, on blogs or elsewhere. Just knowing that your words touch somebody, move them, brighten their day, is magic.

Most of my career I was an investigative reporter. In that phase, my words were more likely to wound or injure than to inspire or heal. I still have the capability to act as an investigator. Once you acquire that skill set, you never really lose it.

Investigators can find out pretty much anything we what to find out about anybody anywhere -- except, of course, what matters most.

Because no amount of investigative reporting will ever reveal the inner secrets of the human heart or untangle the web of human emotions.

You can gather all of the facts you may wish but they do not add up to a narrative. They do not add up to a story. And most certainly, they will never add up to the ultimate, which would be a love story.

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