Discussion
I've been thinking about how LiveJournal offers a unique space for discussion. In addition to "on topic" interactions in the forums, you're allowed a glimpse (albeit limited) into the lives of the members through their journals. You can read their movie reviews, poetry, and everyday events. You can match the mind to the life from which it came...Not the average internet experience.
I think that some people live in their ideas more than others. For some, thinking is simply a mental excersize - a puzzle or brain teaser that you work out for the pleasure of it. That has never been the case with me, however.
I feel as though I was born with "no skin." That when I'm in a room with people I can "feel" every single one of them. I'm the sort of person that meets strangers and hears their entire life stories - their dreams, their hopes, their sadnesses. And though I am truly honored to be given access to such things, I usually find "real life" interaction absolutely exhausting. When listening to people all the judgements that I might fall back on to protect me from feeling their pain - (Oh, they should have done this or that, or they're in pain because of yadda yadda) - when I'm listening to someone these thoughts are non-existent. I am simply with them. And I can't help but be. I do not have an off switch that allows me to tune them out.
The same goes with the opinions of the world at large. I have never been able to dismiss a point of view - even if it is a "factually" incorrect one. A view is view - and someone actually feels that way whether there's any truth to it or not. There are things about me that would be judged as "wrong" by many folks on this planet. And I can never be sure that I am not wrong. I have never been able to simply write them off..to write anything off.
The ideas and articles i post being discussed in this journal come directly out of my personality - out of my way of coping with the world. It is a way of organizing reality that offers me some relief from the nagging sense of what is "right and wrong." The idea allows me to look at the different schema people are using to create their definitions of right and wrong...and it makes it easier for me to deal with them.
But because some ideas have been created in such close connection to my emotional life - it runs an extreme risk of not being accurate or useful to anyone else. Obviously, being so close to an idea (so close that I would wish to tatoo its symbolism into my skin) impedes my ability to think objectively about it. I know no other way to deal with this then to invite others to it and try to listen to what they have to say. To test this idea in the world - and judge it by the fruits it produces. It's not a perfect process. It's not a creation of sanitary logic, free from my fingerprints and hopes.
I wonder if any ideas really are sanitary things. Can we create something that is devoid of our strengths and weaknesses?
I think that some people live in their ideas more than others. For some, thinking is simply a mental excersize - a puzzle or brain teaser that you work out for the pleasure of it. That has never been the case with me, however.
I feel as though I was born with "no skin." That when I'm in a room with people I can "feel" every single one of them. I'm the sort of person that meets strangers and hears their entire life stories - their dreams, their hopes, their sadnesses. And though I am truly honored to be given access to such things, I usually find "real life" interaction absolutely exhausting. When listening to people all the judgements that I might fall back on to protect me from feeling their pain - (Oh, they should have done this or that, or they're in pain because of yadda yadda) - when I'm listening to someone these thoughts are non-existent. I am simply with them. And I can't help but be. I do not have an off switch that allows me to tune them out.
The same goes with the opinions of the world at large. I have never been able to dismiss a point of view - even if it is a "factually" incorrect one. A view is view - and someone actually feels that way whether there's any truth to it or not. There are things about me that would be judged as "wrong" by many folks on this planet. And I can never be sure that I am not wrong. I have never been able to simply write them off..to write anything off.
The ideas and articles i post being discussed in this journal come directly out of my personality - out of my way of coping with the world. It is a way of organizing reality that offers me some relief from the nagging sense of what is "right and wrong." The idea allows me to look at the different schema people are using to create their definitions of right and wrong...and it makes it easier for me to deal with them.
But because some ideas have been created in such close connection to my emotional life - it runs an extreme risk of not being accurate or useful to anyone else. Obviously, being so close to an idea (so close that I would wish to tatoo its symbolism into my skin) impedes my ability to think objectively about it. I know no other way to deal with this then to invite others to it and try to listen to what they have to say. To test this idea in the world - and judge it by the fruits it produces. It's not a perfect process. It's not a creation of sanitary logic, free from my fingerprints and hopes.
I wonder if any ideas really are sanitary things. Can we create something that is devoid of our strengths and weaknesses?