Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Tag: communication

  • Theme:

    Concrete confusion: trans movement

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    One complaint of the non-binary and transsexual movement is its unwillingness to define itself or its parameters. Tactically this is smart; strategically, it creates havoc.

    In the “concrete universal,” a very particular example becomes the definition for the broader category, which means it serves as a particular instance for an abstract idea.

    In not defining a “specific point,” confusion is the point. (Without concrete, we are only left with shifting abstractions, easily manipulated and unanticipated.)

    Strategically, vagueness can evade attacks, slipping around limiting parameters as a type of guerilla warfare without standardization. Yet, normative social relations predicated upon the utility and identity of defined (concrete) characteristics are thrown into chaos, and the more literal-minded become anxious, leading them to antagonism to recapture stability.

    Without specificity, how to define or defend an idea also seems unknowable. Unfortunately, we are witnessing any non-majority behavior become equivalent by affiliation with the most extreme aspects; that is, people have begun defining the entire LGBTQIA spectrum by its most confusing aspects and reacting against the whole.

  • Theme:

    Intimacy in conversation

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    What is intimacy in conversation?

    It may begin with openness and trust, allowing one to leave and return without condemnation.

    Intimacy presupposes a core understanding, or foundational forgiveness, from which deep security allows reciprocal exposure.

  • Theme:

    Buffering symbolic speed

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Symbols (and ideology) are tools that help us grasp and manipulate reality, like a pair of pliers or a flywheel. When the tools (symbols) are widely adopted, we find a new means of heightened speed and control.

    Once literacy became commonplace, we could communicate more rapidly, allowing influence and manipulation by broadcasting easily repeatable messages faster.

    The converse of symbolic ubiquity and indoctrination would be “incremental learning” or “particular skills acquisition,” such as becoming a stonemason, rather than rapid, frictionless downloads, the process of incremental tutelage and physicality can buffer or bottleneck the transfer rate, providing ample time for redirective response.

    The symbolic’s rapid and straightforward dispersal -with virtually no investment to gain the knowledge- is appealing, allowing them to reside in every portion of our life. Yet, we do not have good defenses (immunological reactions) against such speed and its potential harm.

    (This is echoed in the physicality of a human’s strength versus the flywheel’s released kinetic energy or the hand against the exponential clamping force of the pliers.)

  • Theme:

    The Secondary power of the symbolic

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    the symbolic slips into artifice, illusion or camouflage.

    These have the power to alter reality, but they cannot generate the reality they are drawn from: they are secondary manifestations.

    Not being worn of reality they can never be it. They cannot be primary or foundational, but only ride upon and take advantage of the real.

  • Theme:

    framing yourself

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    There are moments in which you are introducing somebody to your world. In these moments we often introduce a chronology, beginning early and moving forward to catch them up to the present. If that goes well, we project into the future.

    These moments of reminiscence can be fond and annoying, a series of emotional justifications and prevarications from which our current place/moment becomes framed. If this framing is inaccurate, we are tainted; if the framing is excessive or exuberant, we become grandiose.

    I shade towards subdued and humble, but just as often find those that shade grandiose attain the status they envision of themselves, which is to become the optimistic lie.

    The cautionary note is to be neither humble nor a liar, and stretch for better without depreciation or inflation: you do not need to say it to become it.

  • Theme:

    Educating out relationships

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Education today requires leaving, learning to speak in abstract idioms, which transmutes us into relating differently.

    When you return home you no longer speak in the specific particulars (concrete examples) of your family and early social circle.

    To become abstract means it grows increasingly hard to care for those you care about.

  • Theme:

    rationality implies tolerance

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    The basic premise of rationality is listening to other people’s arguments (or reality’s realness) to develop your reasons. In listening, you must make space for arguments from which to consider alternative realities or models.

    Once someone is assured of their rationality to the extent they are intolerant or blind, it is no longer rationality, but belief, which is irrational.

  • Theme:

    sympathy vs empathy

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Sympathy is to merge and completely identify with another.
    Empathy is to "go with" someone without losing yourself.

  • Theme:

    I’m just keeping it real

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Our culture is filled with excuse phrases, often confusing bluntness with truth and rudeness with honesty. It is incredible how often "being real" is brutal and inconsiderate.
    "Being polite," or "nice" may appear to be a weakness or falsity, but it requires discipline and respect not found in "being real."

  • Theme:

    words matter

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    To distinguish between "want" and "wish" is typically easy, but parsing between "desire" and "pleasure," or "obligation" and "commitment," reveals a profound distinction: your motivation and expectation.

    For instance: An obligation is something you must do whether you want to or not. A commitment is a promise you keep out of a sense of honor. You are "obligated" to go to work tomorrow. You "commit" when you say your wedding vows.

    For instance: "Desire" is a compulsion to seek. "Pleasure" is finding enjoyment in the present.