The old ranger in Lonesome Dove, when he'd lost his hoss and
was afoot out on the prairie, he pulled that long ol' Colt
and he declared, "My name's Gus McRae and I'm comin' into camp."
That's the way to enter a group.
Most everyone rides a seasaw when joining a camp. Their first
impulsive question is, what do all these mean to me? Where is
my part in it? Eventually if they find comfort and joy, they
begin to think, over there is a stranger I mark approaching,
I wonder what she means to us.
Those who leave out after a brief time because they don't
feel welcome, I know they have very little invested in the
first place. They can be chased by the flap of butterfly
wings. They are testing the waters, and they are ready to
flit any second. Perhaps they were bored and they joined
groups like changing channels that week. And if you followed
them and asked why they left, they might attempt to switch
the weight back on you: "Oh, I just didn't feel welcome."
The trick is to coddle the fledgling just so much and then
no longer. Some of them will always be dependent on the
patience of strangers. There's a slow progress to their
development, and your reaction to it. You talk babytalk
at the outset, you kick butt in six months.
Well, I missed my coddling in this here forum. What do you
all mean for me? I bet there are hundreds of thousands of
subscribers within your collective influence - why don't you
offer to run free ads for my list?
"I sense I'm not welcome here!" - Richard Rich, in
A Man For All Seasons
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tim Bowden)
"Readers meeting Writers as the Sea the Very Sky"
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