(no subject)
Social arm: How are you, reading this person?
So, hmm, I'm considering picking this journal back up off the ground to use it to lay out a policy.
A policy! The thought excites me. I started making one in March 2008, made some headway, didn't formulate it into anything final, have gone back and forth about it in the past year. It never stopped exciting me and now I start to think that a dearth of personal policy is holding back the rest of my life.
What I mean when I say 'policy' is: a system of anticipations sufficient to give me at least one desirable alternative in every situation where I look for it. I mean it as a metaphor which can resiliently nest my entire repertoire of [conscious] actions in this world.
By 'resilient nest' I mean that a look is capable of co-opting a counterargument from within the framework it proposes (and inhabits). So, in response to "I don't have a policy!" the policy nest responds "Having no policy is also a policy!" A common analogous pair is: "I improvise without following any rules!" to which Rules responds "That's a rule, too!"
In that sense, part of the policy project is figuring out, on a number of levels, what I already do, and what I could do differently given the same situation.
I want to be personally delocated from my policy, yet 'hinged' to it, i.e., my policy or I can change without the other automatically changing in the exact same way.
I tend to think of constructing a policy in a piecewise fashion, by building it up from small components that address separate occasions and situations, usually defined as a simple instruction (word score) with a clause beginning with "When...". For example, "when you decide to go to bed, brush and floss your teeth." This one is common, I'm looking to create ones that never have existed before AND are equally desirable.
The first policy change in constructing a policy must be a modification to my living such that consciously composed policy arises. For the moment, we'll see if this journal post makes a dent.
(These piecelets may be said to stand on their own as Repertoire Cards. The Repertoire Cards project is dedicated to creating and collecting such things in a socially networked way, and you're of course invited.)
Many a day I come across moments of feeling as though I could be doing something right for that moment, and I didn't have an idea of what that meant at the time. Sometimes I think to formulate it as a question of "what's your policy on that?" Sometimes I don't. At any rate, here are some open questions to my self.
What's your intimacy policy?
Are you single? In a relationship? Looking for a relationship?
What kinds of physical contact would you welcome from anyone who isn't diseased?
What kinds of physical contact do you think to initiate?
What are the ways in which you give attention to someone?
When do you make eye contact with someone?
To what extent do you care about every other human being? About every human being you know? About every living thing? About the universe?
What are your (current) pet peeves? Soapboxes? Hot buttons? What do you insist upon everyone within earshot?
What do you do in the presence of a fact? How about an unknown cultural reference?
What opinions are you capable of expressing? of arguing convincingly?
What do you do when you've forgotten the name of the person you're talking to?
How long do you want to talk on the phone to _____? How often?
What's your cell phone use policy? When is it on/off/vibrating/loud?
What do you do at the end of a one-on-one interaction?
Where did you get the clothes that you wear? Why do you wear the clothes that you wear?
Why are you a vegetarian?
What do you do when someone offers you meat? Coffee? Tea? A joint? A beer?
What criteria do you use to decide when and what and how to eat?
What range of facial expressions are available to you when you pass a stranger on the street?
What do you do when someone you don't know yells "'sup?" when you're biking by?
What's your policy on beggars and buskers?
What's your policy on punctuality?
Through what lenses do you look at the world at any time?
Under what conditions do you exert yourself physically?
Under what conditions do you explicitly reveal one of your policies to another person?
What justifies driving your car? Riding in a car? How about an aeroplane?
What constitutes an emergency?
What is immediately obvious?
Do you have an artist statement? Resume? CV? What works do you make publicly consumable?
What makes you happy? Angry? Sad?
Having an answer I was happy with to every one of these questions would be a start to a policy. Of course, the policy would be subject to change, but perhaps only once a week.
Many of the answers I'm looking for will be unnecessarily -- no, actually necessarily -- complicated. The way that I compose them is by searching for a way to connect them structurally/significantly/meaningfully to something else. For example, a policy on beggars & buskers couldn't merely come out of how I decide I innately feel about beggars and buskers, but could also explicitly depend upon the current temperature outside, or how they respond to something I do first, or the key of the music they're playing in, and could involve other passersby, the environmental structure we find ourselves in, and props that I've wisely brought along in my pocket.
Okay, then. Now that I've done at least something today, maybe I can bring myself to sleep.
So, hmm, I'm considering picking this journal back up off the ground to use it to lay out a policy.
A policy! The thought excites me. I started making one in March 2008, made some headway, didn't formulate it into anything final, have gone back and forth about it in the past year. It never stopped exciting me and now I start to think that a dearth of personal policy is holding back the rest of my life.
What I mean when I say 'policy' is: a system of anticipations sufficient to give me at least one desirable alternative in every situation where I look for it. I mean it as a metaphor which can resiliently nest my entire repertoire of [conscious] actions in this world.
By 'resilient nest' I mean that a look is capable of co-opting a counterargument from within the framework it proposes (and inhabits). So, in response to "I don't have a policy!" the policy nest responds "Having no policy is also a policy!" A common analogous pair is: "I improvise without following any rules!" to which Rules responds "That's a rule, too!"
In that sense, part of the policy project is figuring out, on a number of levels, what I already do, and what I could do differently given the same situation.
I want to be personally delocated from my policy, yet 'hinged' to it, i.e., my policy or I can change without the other automatically changing in the exact same way.
I tend to think of constructing a policy in a piecewise fashion, by building it up from small components that address separate occasions and situations, usually defined as a simple instruction (word score) with a clause beginning with "When...". For example, "when you decide to go to bed, brush and floss your teeth." This one is common, I'm looking to create ones that never have existed before AND are equally desirable.
The first policy change in constructing a policy must be a modification to my living such that consciously composed policy arises. For the moment, we'll see if this journal post makes a dent.
(These piecelets may be said to stand on their own as Repertoire Cards. The Repertoire Cards project is dedicated to creating and collecting such things in a socially networked way, and you're of course invited.)
Many a day I come across moments of feeling as though I could be doing something right for that moment, and I didn't have an idea of what that meant at the time. Sometimes I think to formulate it as a question of "what's your policy on that?" Sometimes I don't. At any rate, here are some open questions to my self.
What's your intimacy policy?
Are you single? In a relationship? Looking for a relationship?
What kinds of physical contact would you welcome from anyone who isn't diseased?
What kinds of physical contact do you think to initiate?
What are the ways in which you give attention to someone?
When do you make eye contact with someone?
To what extent do you care about every other human being? About every human being you know? About every living thing? About the universe?
What are your (current) pet peeves? Soapboxes? Hot buttons? What do you insist upon everyone within earshot?
What do you do in the presence of a fact? How about an unknown cultural reference?
What opinions are you capable of expressing? of arguing convincingly?
What do you do when you've forgotten the name of the person you're talking to?
How long do you want to talk on the phone to _____? How often?
What's your cell phone use policy? When is it on/off/vibrating/loud?
What do you do at the end of a one-on-one interaction?
Where did you get the clothes that you wear? Why do you wear the clothes that you wear?
Why are you a vegetarian?
What do you do when someone offers you meat? Coffee? Tea? A joint? A beer?
What criteria do you use to decide when and what and how to eat?
What range of facial expressions are available to you when you pass a stranger on the street?
What do you do when someone you don't know yells "'sup?" when you're biking by?
What's your policy on beggars and buskers?
What's your policy on punctuality?
Through what lenses do you look at the world at any time?
Under what conditions do you exert yourself physically?
Under what conditions do you explicitly reveal one of your policies to another person?
What justifies driving your car? Riding in a car? How about an aeroplane?
What constitutes an emergency?
What is immediately obvious?
Do you have an artist statement? Resume? CV? What works do you make publicly consumable?
What makes you happy? Angry? Sad?
Having an answer I was happy with to every one of these questions would be a start to a policy. Of course, the policy would be subject to change, but perhaps only once a week.
Many of the answers I'm looking for will be unnecessarily -- no, actually necessarily -- complicated. The way that I compose them is by searching for a way to connect them structurally/significantly/meaningfully to something else. For example, a policy on beggars & buskers couldn't merely come out of how I decide I innately feel about beggars and buskers, but could also explicitly depend upon the current temperature outside, or how they respond to something I do first, or the key of the music they're playing in, and could involve other passersby, the environmental structure we find ourselves in, and props that I've wisely brought along in my pocket.
Okay, then. Now that I've done at least something today, maybe I can bring myself to sleep.