Hi, This is a writing about fiction-reality, or reality-fiction. I have a real story to tell you, about something happening to me when I was younger. This is it: One day, long ago, my father (who was a math-engeneer, a researcher & a rocket-scientist)_ asked me once to try & solve a geometry problem. An it was a kind of joke & reality geometrical problem to solve at the same time, a parable too... The problem was: _"A farmer possesses a round (circular) closed field of grass to have his goat grazing. _But, (by a bizarre decision of his), he wanted that the goat could only graze (and eat) half of the surface of the circular field, with a peg (stake) planted exactly on one point the field's perimeter, to keep the goat in leach" with a rope to be able to eat only the half of the field's surface's grass. _The question was: "_If you know the diameter's length of the round (circle) field of gras is "x", then what must be the length "y" of the rope that holds the goat so that it allows the animal to eat only the half surface of the round field of grass, and not more ?" I was told that it needs knowledge about "Integrals"-Maths to solve this one. I am not a mathematician, I still do not know the answer_and, really, I don't care too much, you'll see why, but much later, it just made me think tomyself: "Why the heck, and what kind of farmer, peasant, or ANY farmer would want or need his goat - or any other kind of cattle _ being allowed or not eating ONLY half the surface of a round field, and what the heck is this bloody funny & strange idea coming from, if not from a tortured & sick-minded person ?" That 's what I think now, after so many years my father told me and saidit was an interesting Geometry problem. Yes, it's interesting, and..very difficult to find the solution.....of the problem. The thing is: Do we really need to CREATE problems that don't exist in the Nature ? ...And can we apply this question to Politics & Human Life, and is this very last question here relevant ? Excerpts of my book: "Why the heck ?" or "A New Approach into the Philosophy of Mathematics and other matters like Arts & History". ..I love so much my Dad. Bless you, Daddy, wherever you are today.

Sometimes having the answer isn't important, but being able to figure it out is important. In elementary school, we'd always get math problems where we really didn't care what the answer was. Sally would have 8 apples, Peter would eat 3, and you'd have to figure out how many apples Sally had left. Sorry, but I don't care about Sally at all, let alone how many apples she had. For all I cared, Peter could eat all the apples, seeds and all, and die of cyanide poisoning! Learning how to do subtraction, though, was invaluable. There's also been a lot of experiments that didn't seem important at the time, but later on turned out to be really useful. Post-It notes were considered a failed glue experiment. Do we have to create problems that don't exist in nature? I think it's imperative that we do. We can not anticipate and be proactive if we don't imagine what is and what could be. We may also find that some of those "non-existant" problems do occur in nature, just not where we expected or how we expected. Interesting post, but it fits better in the Off Topic Forum instead of Writers' Forum. This forum is for story and poem ideas, not philosophical questions. (Yes, poems and stories can pose questions and morals, but the words wrapped around the idea are also important.)

I hope I didn't come across the wrong way - I'm not trying to slam anyone or toss them out. We have a large number of forums covering a wide range of topics and the OT forum is filled with people who love a good philosophical debate, so I suggested that a philosophical post might be better suited there. The originating post doesn't seem to have much to do with the craft of writing - the ideas behind writing, character, word choice, plots, themes, authors, books, etc. - but it is similar to some of the posts I've seen in the OT forum (this is not meant in a bad way, I hang out there, too) so I gave my opinion that it might fit in better at the OT Forum. If it were a big deal, I could be heavy handed and move or lock the thread. It isn't. I didn't. I just gave my opinion. (Even mods get to have opinions on occasion.) There's no reason for apologies. -Klaus stated an opinion, you stated an opinion, and I stated an opinion. There isn't even that much disagreement between the opinions. (Well, if you want to apologize for unnecessarily apologizing, I can accept that.) ;-) The weekend just isn't coming fast enough! Cheers!

"This is a writing about fiction-reality, or reality-fiction." I have heard this style of writing deemed "Faction" (a mixture of fact and fiction). IMHO, the post is indeed a writing post, it just involves a child's perception of his father's mathematical mode of thinking and the application of that thinking upon the reality of the world. Also, it is stated as an excerpt from a book in progress. Although, the manner in which it was presented, to me, could use some further development and "cleaning up". (Ie, In most writings, the underscore character is rarely if ever used and, to my knowledge, the underscore does not have a literary meaning to it.)