Are you on Instagram? Oh God, it hurts me so bad how didactic things have become there. I think what you're saying is if we're using therapy speak to distance ourselves emotionally, then it's not going to help. And that is so true and yet it's the rage on Insta.
On Insta, I see therapists post on 'Here are 4 ways to set a boundary/say no' and they'll literally write down the dialogues for it. Like seriously, people don't know how to speak and you had to write the dialogues for it? It really boils my blood.
I loved your music analogy, the reference to Jonah Hill (classic case of using therapy speak to avoid vulnerability like you pointed out) and this sentence in particular: "What of my anxiety or anger is being irritated, and why? This last piece is missing in so much of our discourse. We instantly know what is being said, and form strong opinions, forgetting we have our own way of hearing."
That really spoke to me. And getting to that is becoming harder and harder.
Well done Darren. It's hard to play both sides, to be as capacious as possible with another's use in a particular moment of a common word, and as precise as possible in our own estimation of the possible uses as well as the potential muddles. I think you did a fine job with a particularly difficult subject to talk about, the use of ordinary language. Ordinary language is the place where we will meet each other most easily and most flexibly. It does not follow that it will be easier than more sophisticated language. It does have the virtue of at least superficially being shared. There seem to be ephemeral senses of common words that emerge only within a particular moment. It's those ephemeral senses that I try to catch and play with in a shared moment. They come and then they are gone.
"Consider the convolution that is spoken or written word. Raw impression (image, word, perspective, feeling, concept, etc.) forms or arrives in our mind. Our perception (or misperception) and its interpretation (or misinterpretation) is then encoded into language using diction based on personal comprehension, connotations, and otherwise preformed notions in an effort to convey the impression to another. On the receiving end, decoding the language goes through the same process in reverse amidst the same twists and turns. By then the original impression has been invariably altered – in a range from slightly skewed to hopelessly unrecognizable. This has been ‘normal’ throughout recorded history. Is it any wonder we accomplish anything at all – let alone the so-called ‘impossible’."
Are you on Instagram? Oh God, it hurts me so bad how didactic things have become there. I think what you're saying is if we're using therapy speak to distance ourselves emotionally, then it's not going to help. And that is so true and yet it's the rage on Insta.
On Insta, I see therapists post on 'Here are 4 ways to set a boundary/say no' and they'll literally write down the dialogues for it. Like seriously, people don't know how to speak and you had to write the dialogues for it? It really boils my blood.
I loved your music analogy, the reference to Jonah Hill (classic case of using therapy speak to avoid vulnerability like you pointed out) and this sentence in particular: "What of my anxiety or anger is being irritated, and why? This last piece is missing in so much of our discourse. We instantly know what is being said, and form strong opinions, forgetting we have our own way of hearing."
That really spoke to me. And getting to that is becoming harder and harder.
Thanks for your comments! To paraphrase the Talmud, we think we see things the way they are rather than how *we* are.
p.s. I'm on Instagram only occasionally. Mostly Twitter, FB, and of course here. :)
Well done Darren. It's hard to play both sides, to be as capacious as possible with another's use in a particular moment of a common word, and as precise as possible in our own estimation of the possible uses as well as the potential muddles. I think you did a fine job with a particularly difficult subject to talk about, the use of ordinary language. Ordinary language is the place where we will meet each other most easily and most flexibly. It does not follow that it will be easier than more sophisticated language. It does have the virtue of at least superficially being shared. There seem to be ephemeral senses of common words that emerge only within a particular moment. It's those ephemeral senses that I try to catch and play with in a shared moment. They come and then they are gone.
Nicely put, Edward! Poetic, isn’t it, that fleeting ephemera. I appreciate the feedback and wish you a good holiday!
"Consider the convolution that is spoken or written word. Raw impression (image, word, perspective, feeling, concept, etc.) forms or arrives in our mind. Our perception (or misperception) and its interpretation (or misinterpretation) is then encoded into language using diction based on personal comprehension, connotations, and otherwise preformed notions in an effort to convey the impression to another. On the receiving end, decoding the language goes through the same process in reverse amidst the same twists and turns. By then the original impression has been invariably altered – in a range from slightly skewed to hopelessly unrecognizable. This has been ‘normal’ throughout recorded history. Is it any wonder we accomplish anything at all – let alone the so-called ‘impossible’."
https://bohobeau.net/2016/12/27/babel/
Well said! Instead of trying to define the miraculous with language, look instead to the miracle of language itself.
The point is actually that language is inherently a convolution. The miracle is that we function as well as we do in using it!
👍🏽