Re: "To everything a purpose ..."

Good question, Bernie.. on this thread, I happened upon Garrison Kellior's
post on the blog about this, sort of.. see below..

Garrison, On one of your recent previews to a show, you mentioned the
Scandinavian principle of "good enough." I have been trying since to find it
on your web site and read more about it. Alas, the closest the PHC search
can find is the "godt nok. Good enough." line at the end of the July issue
of The Ballast! Google is no better. It seems that this is an elusive
principle at best. Can you point me in the right direction? That would be
good enough.

Thanks,

Ed

The Good Enough principle is so common that Google can't find it, I guess,
but basically it is a belief in mediocrity and an antidote to envy. Nobody
is better than anybody else, superiority is mostly an illusion, so don't
think you're a big shot because you're not. We're all about the same when
you come right down to it. Don't look back with regret - your life was good
enough. Your parents were good enough, so was your school, so is your job.
So quit belly-aching. Don't sweat it. Good Enough may seem like faint
praise, but some things really are good enough. Don't make a big deal over
it. Don't try to make it the best that ever was or could be. It's good
enough. And that's good enough.

Source:
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/prairiehome/posthost/2007/09/06/post_to_t
he_host_garrison_2.php

Best,
DrWeb

--
P. Michael McCulley aka DrWeb
mailto:drweb_at_san.rr.com
San Diego, CA
http://drweb.typepad.com/

Quote of the Moment:
 DOS-O-MANIA : Root is not the book Alex Haley wrote.
Saturday, September 08, 2007 11:07:59 AM
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On
>Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
>Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 4:35 PM
>To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
>Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] "To everything a purpose ..."
>
>I'm pretty sure I agree with Alex's argument (leaving a little uncertainty
there).  :-)
>
>  But I think maybe we're having different discussions about "good enough"?
My earlier
>comment was more along the lines of not understanding why librarians
sometimes use
>"good enough" as a pejorative, with a hint of condescension. Many times
"good
>enough" really is "good enough". (And I'm not talking just about the
ready-reference
>type of questions that someone mentioned in another posting).
>
>  This summer I was reading something about satisficing and maximizing that
>suggested that satisficers generally felt better about the decisions they
made than
>maximizers did. I suppose one could say that satisficers don't know what
they don't
>know, and that ignorance is bliss.  :-)  Maximizers always worried that the
perfect
>information was out there if only they would keep looking for it. They were
often
>hindered by knowing there were things that they didn't know, so to speak.
>
>  Bernie Sloan
>