Archives for posts with tag: language functions by agreement
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Something On My Mind

February 26, 2025 //
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I’m sipping coffee and feeling irritated by something I read. I decide not to rant about it, and sit quietly reflecting on it instead. Words can come later. It makes sense to “get my head right” before I start blathering foolishly about something I’ve had an emotional reaction to, but about which I lack clarity of thought. All in good time, eh? Other voices can lead with emotions, I’ll sit this one out for a time.

… This is sometimes a difficult choice to make…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’ve taken the day off work to handle a project with the help of the Anxious Adventurer, wrapping up the move of household goods between storage units. The clock is ticking, but there’s only the largest items left, and we’ve got a truck for all that. Soon. For now, I sit with my coffee and my thoughts.

I am thinking about language, and the way it functions, which is to say “by agreement”. Without a shared understanding of the definitions of terms being used, there is no reliably good communication. No “understanding”. How often do you pause a contentious conversation to clarify the meanings of key words and phrases? How often do you verify that you and those you are conversing with have a shared understanding of what words mean? Conmen, grifters, “marketing experts”, and all manner of manipulative individuals, rely on the likelihood that we can be persuaded to think or behave in some useful way based on what we thought we understood them to have said, without clearly understanding what they actually meant by the words they used. Just saying it’s generally a good idea to check in on such things, to verify shared understanding of words being used, and to avoid being misled by misused language.

I watch daybreak arrive, thinking my thoughts. Lovely quiet morning, so far. Soon enough it will be time to begin again. Already.

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Categories Allegories, breathe, Free Will, Logic & Reason, meditation, Moments, Perspective, Practices, The Art of Being, Words

Willful Change Takes Effort

January 12, 2025 //
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I woke from restless dreams about change and started my day the usual way, more or less. The evening, yesterday, ended on an unfortunate contentious note that seemed neither necessary, nor helpful. I finally gave up on conversation and went to bed, feeling irritated and frustrated.

I managed to sleep, but my sleep was both unsatisfying and filled with strange dreams of things not turning out properly regardless of effort or attempts to fix things. I woke feeling glad to be released from my dream life.

View from the trailhead before dawn.

I got to the trailhead still fighting the fairly stupid very human urge to “prove my point”, left over from last night. That kind of horse-flogging, tail-chasing foolishness is an incredible waste of precious limited mortal lifetime. I snarl quietly at myself to let that shit go. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I roll my eyes in an unseen expression of exasperation, and sigh. Letting a moment of discord take over my thoughts and “live in my head” that way does nothing to add to my life, and it’s pretty fucking pointless, generally. Seeking to convince someone else of something that directly contradicts their experience or beliefs is unproductive.

Either, or. Neither, nor. Grammatical details matter most if the result affects meaning or understanding. The rest, I think, is a matter of style… but… language functions by agreement, does it not?

… I still catch myself doing a search of my written work for a turn of phrase and a keyword I’d been accused of not using (or not using correctly), and easily find dozens of examples, old and new. It’s neither rare nor used incorrectly, where I find it. On the other hand, to the point my Traveling Partner was making, it’s also not at all consistent and I often don’t bother with it. I write very much the way I talk, so it’s a given that in spoken conversation and day-to-day use, I’m certainly also quite hit or miss, and probably misusing grammar on this detail a lot. I sigh. Is he right? Is he wrong? Am I? Are we both? Are we neither of us specifically exclusively correct? The particular point of grammar involved really matters to him. Less so to me (aside from how much it matters to him).

“Emotion and Reason” 18″ x 24″ acrylic w/ceramic and glow details, 2012

I sigh to myself and let my vexation melt away. What matters most to me is how much I love this particular human being. Enough to work to change. Even to flex my style. There is work involved, especially because I just don’t actually personally care much about this particular point of grammar, myself (using”neither/nor” to support the negative most correctly vs lazily defaulting to “either/or” all the time). Being very grammatically correct on this point has often gotten me teased for sounding pretentious or stuck up, and I suspect that drove me to discontinue it in favor of a more relatable approachable conversational style. I think it over as I lace up my boots before I put the whole vexing thing aside to walk the trail.

… The things we do for love…

There’s a hint of daybreak in the paler gray of the pre-dawn sky. The moon has set, but I won’t need my headlamp for long. The chilly dampness of the marsh wraps me in mist and silence. It’s a good time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, Logic & Reason, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

This, Again?

October 17, 2018 //
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Yesterday, I had yet another opportunity to patiently explain to someone that they do not get to tell me what I think, why I think it, or how I came to the conclusion I did. It seems obvious, really; my opinion is mine to decide, and to decide even whether to share it. Attempting to force assumptions about my opinion, or my thoughts, or my feelings, upon me is… fucking dumb. A.) That isn’t how opinions or thinking work. B.) No one likes that shit or needs that from anyone else. Lastly, C.) Fucking hell, people, how hard is it, really, to ask a question and listen to the fucking answer?

It’s an extra special nightmare frustration when that person is a man and his tone is condescending and patronizing. I’m not a child or a little girl, and frankly, on its own maleness does nothing whatever to make any stated opinion or observed fact somehow more relevant, worthwhile, or legitimate, at all. I’m just… yeah. So done with that bullshit. lol I managed to walk on from that interaction without resorting to insults or name-calling, which turns out not to require any sort of heroic effort of any sort, I just reminded myself silently that I had things to do, and that arguing with an ass clown was not on my list today. lol

On and on. Trump didn’t change it – maybe didn’t even “make it worse” – but his presidency pushed it into the forefront (again)(I mean, really, we’ve fought this fight before, and had made a lot of apparent headway, but… no… here we are). Kavanaugh isn’t “new” or novel, or frankly even fucking interesting. Been. Here. Before. Been here all along. Maybe we can all work on this? We can do better. I mean, seriously America? Fucking Nazis? Are you kidding me?

Words matter. Choose them with care. Really listen to people. Really share your authentic actual thoughts with them (versus just quoting some regurgitated sound bite you lifted from a talking head on cable news). Connect for real. Ask the deep questions that matter most. Listen – really listen – to the answers. Put content over bullshit. Show your fellow citizens some “common decency”, consideration, empathy, and respect. Maybe even let “I disagree with that position” be the actual end of a conversation or disagreeable moment, and walk on. You don’t have to persuade or convince everyone that your position is right. Maybe it isn’t. Share it if you care to, then let that shit go, too. Quality of life is not about being right. Great relationships are not built on being right. Contentment and happiness are not made up of moments of being right. Fucking just listen once in a while, and even, now and then, accept that you do not know all of everything… or… just maybe.. in some particular instance… insisting on being right, regardless of perceived factual correctness, maybe be quite the wrong thing to do.

…Then… also… respect both your own expertise, and the expertise of your associates. Ask more questions than you answer. Listen to what you’re hearing, and really be present for that. Learn stuff. Grow. Assume positive intent. Have positive intentions yourself! Be authentically who you are – rightness and wrongness and error, flaws, mistakes, and character failures, and all; we don’t become who we most want to be if we can’t start from who we are right now and move on from there.

What I’m saying is, arguing is dumb. It wastes time, and people who are arguing are not listening to each other. Arguments are made up of people throwing their words at other people who are, at best, throwing words back – without listening at all. It’s ridiculous and gets no further toward truths than standing still quite silently would do, and quite possibly, standing still silently would be more effective. (It probably is, actually…)

Don’t argue.

Don’t yell. (Not really relevant, it’s just super unpleasant, and effective only for escalation the emotionality of the interaction in an unpleasant way; if you’re yelling to make your point, you already lost the argument. Just stop.)

Talk to each other. Really listen. Grow because you are hearing new information – or because you have the wisdom to refuse to incorporate ad copy, memes, or straight up misinformation, in your thinking, in spite of hearing it, again. Ask clarifying questions; there’s always more to know. Get context, and check your assumptions; you’re wrong more often than you realize (I promise you this is true).

People can be really fucking repetitive with shit they pick up along the way that they did not really think through themselves, or apply any critical thinking to, when they adopted it as their own. They cling to that shit. It’s tedious. Don’t follow the crowd. It makes for dull conversation, filled with half-baked bullshit, and actual lies.

Do better. Think your own thoughts. Use critical thinking skills to examine what thoughts you think you have. Check your assumptions for accuracy. Check your expectations to ensure they are shared, and realistic, and not left moldering in a corner all implicit and unverified and shit. Easy stuff. Slow the fuck down and ask yourself some questions about the thoughts you tell yourself are your own. Are they really? Fact-checked, lately, Bruh? Did you make any effort at all to determine whether the words you are about to say reflect who you truly are, consistent with the values you claim you have?

My coffee is tasty this morning. I’m mostly ignoring it. My nightmares were a tad too much “Handmaid’s Tale” for my emotional comfort, and I woke feeling confused, angry, resentful, irritated, puzzled, frightened, restless, and yearning for freedom. The conversation, yesterday, in which some rando man-human specifically told me I don’t think what I do, and can’t because I’m wrong about thinking it, was still grating on my nerves. lol At 55, I fucking well know what my political leanings are, what my philosophy of life is, and where I think my ideas potentially take me in life. I’m pretty over men thinking they have something to say to me about what I think. (Wow. I’m obviously still fucking angry about it, too… and only on this whole meta level as an archetypal conversation repeated over time, not the specific moment and individual. Wild. Why are we still here, at all?)

I grin when I think about the end of that conversation (for me). “I disagree with your position. We have nothing further to discuss.”

Sometimes, I gotta just walk on, and begin again. 🙂

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Categories Allegories, anger, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Map Reading

August 3, 2016 //
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I’m sipping my coffee, starting my day, and skimming headlines. It doesn’t take long; the news is filled with non-news about celebrity politicians and the presidential election draws near. I speed along contentedly and largely without stress by allowing myself a jovial mental reply to the headlines – as though a friend said it to me aloud. I move on from there, generally without reading the articles.  Over weeks they have degraded, lacking anything really new to say, becoming strident on all sides, using ‘shout louder’ hoping to gain readers, views, and clicks; reading the articles is already pointless, reading the comments would be a crime against my own humanity.

Skimming the headlines does get me thinking about language. It functions by agreement; differences in our “dictionary”, and thereby our “map of the world”, result in a lack of shared understanding. It would be nice if that were so obvious that each of us routinely would request clarification in conversation (“Would you define ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, ‘urgent’, ‘required’, ‘necessary’, ‘obscene’, ‘family values’, ‘right wing’, ‘left wing’, ‘terrorism’, ‘racism’,… You see where that could be cumbersome?), but we don’t ask; we assume we share an understanding of common terms. We are routinely deceived or bamboozled when (and because) that is not actually the case. I will walk away from conversation with someone who says “that’s just semantics” when talking about the meanings of the words they choose to use in reply to a request for clarification. It was just such a moment that firmly made up my mind to leave my last job; I can’t work comfortably with someone who expresses the belief that the definitions of the words he uses are not relevant to communication. That’s just… yeah. “Meaning” is sort of the fucking point of communicating… for some of us. For others… well… words can be a shortcut to forcing their will on others, and for those folks, perhaps the actual meaning is less important than the outcome.

Meaning still matters – that it matters is independent of what we choose to do about that. Sort of like reality itself – which gives not one tinkers damn what our opinions are, or what we ‘believe’.

Take a minute and have some fun. How many terms in the prior paragraphs are too loosely defined to be sure that you and I are “on the same page”? 😉

A flock of geese walking by; how do they communication so well?

A flock of geese walking by; how do they communication so well?

I sip my coffee, now-cold in the chill morning air, and watch an enormous flock of Canada geese slow march across the lawn beyond the window. It’s been some weeks since I’ve seen so many, it tells me fall is approaching to see so many.  Is that ‘true’? Does it matter? Well… if I were a feral human in my natural environment potentially relying on a tasty goose to eat now and then, it very well might matter that I understand very well, and quite accurately, their comings and goings. As a suburbanite on the edge of a manicured and maintained not-at-all-wilderness, with a well-stocked pantry, running water, heat, indoor plumbing, and a bit of time on my hands, it’s comfortable to accept their comings and goings as part of the scenery, content with the notion that they are a harbinger of the season changing… maybe they are. My required level of accuracy seems conditional.

I continue to sip my cold coffee – it’s very tasty in spite of having gone cold – and mull things over. There is value in simple language. I like being well-understood. What has value but doesn’t come naturally is worth practicing.

Today is a good day to compare the map to the world; it is of greatest value when the map accurately reflects the world. Scale matters. Perspective, too. Today is a good day to change the map.  🙂

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

I’m Just Asking the Question

March 11, 2016 //
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Questions are powerful. Asking them often seems more valuable [to me] than insisting on answers. It’s the questions that redirect my attention from one thing to another. Questions fired off one after the other without time to answer quickly find me feeling backed into a corner, or attacked and frustrated. Questions themselves are not to blame for any of that; it’s how they are used, and with what intent. If I am listening, they can also quickly alert me that I am being misunderstood. I am learning to practice deep listening even when I feel emotionally attacked, or unexpectedly cornered by someone else’s aggressively expressed agenda. (I’m not saying I find it easy, but I often find it successful for putting challenging discourse back on a civil, comfortable foundation.) The most interesting thing about practicing listening deeply is that I end up… listening. Hearing more. Understanding more. Feeling more compassionate and level-headed. Feeling empowered and safe. Once I’m in that place, it becomes a simple thing to ask a question. No animus, no aggression, no passive-aggressive tit-for-tat punishment or emotional bullshit; I am able to ask a reasonable, compassionate, interested question that may actually result in needs being met, and a greater shared understanding being reached. It’s the whole point of a question, actually.

Who's 'right'? The ducks or the waiting cat crouched in the grass?

Who’s ‘right’? The ducks or the waiting cat crouched in the grass?

Questions are powerful. My results vary, of course, because sometimes it is the very feeling of power, itself, that has fueled whatever drama of the moment exists between human beings – and some people don’t want to ‘give up their power’, and perceive any power in anyone else’s hands as a direct threat to their own. It’s a weird sort of emotional greed. I don’t know quite what else to think of it. Fearfulness at its core, probably – I’ve been so terrified of being powerless, myself, that a single question directed with insightful compassion directly at the heart of whatever was truly bothering me could cause real rage; being visible and understood wasn’t what I was after, I only wanted to feel powerful (and I was, in that moment, willing to get there at the expense of someone else’s feeling of emotional safety). I find it, now, a very unhealthy approach. Giving up needing to ‘be right’, giving up needing to feel powerful (not the same thing as feeling empowered!) and practicing authenticity, self-acceptance, and awareness are important stepping-stones to being able to listen deeply (practicing, practicing!), and ask questions with more compassion, and without attacking (also requiring practice).

If I feel flooded, how do I find firm footing to maintain a feeling of safety?

If I feel flooded, how do I find firm footing to maintain a feeling of safety?

Based on careful observation, the vast majority of disagreements are not at all what they appear to be, and it seems rare that participants in dialogue have actually taken time to ensure they have shared definitions of terms, respected fact-based ground rules for the discussion – and a shared purpose in asking and answering their questions. Conversation is so much more pleasant and fulfilling when it is built on sincere connection and genuine receptivity to another person’s thinking. I’m not much interested in arguments, they take time away from intimacy, affection, and connecting deeply with ones fellow humans. This journey is too rich for strategic bullshit, cautious diplomacy, and game-playing! There are stories to tell, adventures to share, parables to teach with, and love notes to slip past the rigidity of our work lives – all so much more important than arguments built on strategy, mud-slinging, and bogus assumptions, all seeking to persuade rather than to learn, grow, or inform. Opening the door to something more sometimes takes little more than a question.

Are you okay?

Are you okay? How are you feeling? What do you need that I can provide?

Unfortunately, questions are also handy emotional weapons. What a shame. What a waste of precious mortal time. I am learning to face such attacks with a new tool; I listen. I’ve stopped focusing on delivering an immediate answer ‘to defend myself’; if I feel attacked, defending myself is probably pretty pointless, because there is something more going on. Instead, I remind myself that this other human being made not have been fully frank with their intent, their needs, or the purpose of their question. They may not have a similar understanding of the topic being discussed as I do, myself. I listen. I take a deep breath – or several – and listen. I am learning – and practicing – letting go of that attachment to ‘being right’ that is so often part of this very human experience, and reminding myself not to take this other human being’s experience at all personally. I listen more. I am learning – and practicing – talking less. It turns out that it is not at all painful to listen. It sucks to ‘wait to talk’, however, so learning to listen (practicing!) requires a commitment to some verbs, and considerable beginning again. (I interrupt rather chronically, partially because I have a brain injury that makes it harder not to, and partially because I need more practice not interrupting.) I find it helpful, when listening deeply, to ask a question when it is clear that a response is expected; this can help me avoid hijacking a conversation in progress with my own agenda, when the person speaking actually has more to say. 🙂

Am I understanding your words correctly? Do you mean what I think I heard?

Am I understanding your words correctly? Do you mean what I think I heard?

I’m definitely not saying that my words lack value, or that I don’t also want and need to be heard, just that it seems pretty reasonable that we all feel that way, and there does seem to be a woeful shortage of real listening going on… if no one is really listening, how will anyone at all feel truly heard, truly visible, or truly connected?

Will I find balance between listening, and questions?

Will I find balance between listening, and questions?

I have the evening to myself tonight, according to the calendar. No idea what I’ll do with it. Paint? Read? Play? Maybe take a few quiet moments and really listen to my own questions? Questions are powerful – and I value feeling heard.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
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