In the course of revising my draft and living my life I encountered an incredibly lucid new source that completely changed my thinking on my topic. As I struggled to incorporate his thoughts and quotations into the framework of what I already had, I initially thought I needed to chuck the whole paper and start over. But as I ripped and wrenched my way through it I discovered a frightening reality - the same arguments I had made on one side could, with very few modifications in the framing and using the exact same quotes, support exactly the opposite. It was like seeing a single Biblical text used to love and hate the same group of people by diametrically opposed theologians. It shouldn't have worked but it did.So my third/fourth/fifth/sixth draft which now exists as my "third draft" on paper is done. It still needs a lot of work to smooth out some rough edges (like the title), but for the moment it is closer to saying what I now want to say.
I am thankful for the revision process because it is helping me to really think through a topic that matters to me, and hopefully I will be able to clearly state a perspective that I can live with by the time I call it done.
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