Over the years -- over very many years -- I've realized that the way I communicate is different from many people, perhaps even the majority. I've realized I have an inside-out soul. Also an upside-down soul. I'm not entirely alone in this. Mike has one too. "When my father died and I was still six, I shut out all emotion in order to cope." That is how he describes his progeneration of an upside-down soul.
Perhaps most people experience their reactions to the world on the basis of emotion. They then become aware of the emotion and try to tame it and control it. This capacity to tame the emotions defines the progress one typically makes from childhood to adulthood. In my case and in Mike's, out natural progress has to be in the opposite direction -- from stoicism to greater feeling-integration.
Language itself becomes contorted when an innate propensity for emotionalism rather than stoicism is assumed. Even empathy may be a contributing factor to meaning going off course. For instance, in not understanding something I do, another may exhort me to "act with more self control", when in fact my level of self-control is extremely high. It would facilitate communication better if I understood why something had to be a certain way and not another, rather than pushing me to act in a manner of even colder, rarefied detachment. The assumption that bringing my emotions to heel would enable me to see anything more clearly is wrong. The would only lead to socially defined meanings becoming much more opaque than ever.
These mechanics of distancing become even more relevant with regard to my writing, where I tend often to use terms outside of their regular social meaning, adopting intellectual terms to embody certain aspects of my experience. I'm sure at times I have given these meanings my own slant to the extent that they no longer have precisely their original definition. Nonetheless, they have my intended meanings, which are generally self-consistent (unless I'm still in the process of intellectually refining what the terms actually mean to me.) I'm never concerned with socially formulated meanings in any of my writing. I am only concerned with how people read -- or misread -- my personal sense of partially obscured or underlying cultural structures. I'm fascinated, in other words, by the way people draw forth implicit meanings or understand connotations. In relation to this, I'm interested in finding out about the emotional structures of various perspectives.
The ability to understand the implicit meanings will enable (or obstruct, in some cases) communication. In a cross-cultural situation, the meanings are often misread and communication is thwarted.
Someone who is moving away from an emotional way of responding to the world will probably misread the actions and ideas of someone who is the process of moving towards a more emotionally integrated view of the world. They will see moments of release from the necessity of stoicism, for instance, as a shameful loss of self-control. However, if one has self-control almost inevitably and necessarily, one may not be so alarmed at losing it through episodes of humor, even when this involves a risk of being profoundly and irrevocably misunderstood -- indeed "read backwards".
I enjoy cultures where having stoicism at the base-line of one's character is considered normal and I find it akin to walking in a minefield whenever I engage with cultures which have the opposite assumption at work.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
Perhaps most people experience their reactions to the world on the basis of emotion. They then become aware of the emotion and try to tame it and control it. This capacity to tame the emotions defines the progress one typically makes from childhood to adulthood. In my case and in Mike's, out natural progress has to be in the opposite direction -- from stoicism to greater feeling-integration.
Language itself becomes contorted when an innate propensity for emotionalism rather than stoicism is assumed. Even empathy may be a contributing factor to meaning going off course. For instance, in not understanding something I do, another may exhort me to "act with more self control", when in fact my level of self-control is extremely high. It would facilitate communication better if I understood why something had to be a certain way and not another, rather than pushing me to act in a manner of even colder, rarefied detachment. The assumption that bringing my emotions to heel would enable me to see anything more clearly is wrong. The would only lead to socially defined meanings becoming much more opaque than ever.
These mechanics of distancing become even more relevant with regard to my writing, where I tend often to use terms outside of their regular social meaning, adopting intellectual terms to embody certain aspects of my experience. I'm sure at times I have given these meanings my own slant to the extent that they no longer have precisely their original definition. Nonetheless, they have my intended meanings, which are generally self-consistent (unless I'm still in the process of intellectually refining what the terms actually mean to me.) I'm never concerned with socially formulated meanings in any of my writing. I am only concerned with how people read -- or misread -- my personal sense of partially obscured or underlying cultural structures. I'm fascinated, in other words, by the way people draw forth implicit meanings or understand connotations. In relation to this, I'm interested in finding out about the emotional structures of various perspectives.
The ability to understand the implicit meanings will enable (or obstruct, in some cases) communication. In a cross-cultural situation, the meanings are often misread and communication is thwarted.
Someone who is moving away from an emotional way of responding to the world will probably misread the actions and ideas of someone who is the process of moving towards a more emotionally integrated view of the world. They will see moments of release from the necessity of stoicism, for instance, as a shameful loss of self-control. However, if one has self-control almost inevitably and necessarily, one may not be so alarmed at losing it through episodes of humor, even when this involves a risk of being profoundly and irrevocably misunderstood -- indeed "read backwards".
I enjoy cultures where having stoicism at the base-line of one's character is considered normal and I find it akin to walking in a minefield whenever I engage with cultures which have the opposite assumption at work.
STAY SANE AND SAVAGE Gender activism, intellectual shamanism
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