sociology

On knowing and deeper relationships

PelgrisLeave a comment

It strikes me. How little we actually know each other. What our likes are. How we feel about subtle things. What makes us laugh. What we find amusing. What smells bring memories. What tastes wake passions. Who we are. Beyond the social surface level.

I want to know all of it. Because I’m a knowledge junky. I crave information, context, feelings, hopes, nightmares. I want to see. To know.

But I resign myself to quarter truths and half knowing. Because that level of intimacy is daunting. The conversations we have in our minds. Things we want to say but don’t. Letting it pass by. Each moment lost.

Deep truths wake deep truths shared in others. I’ve done it. Seen it. Less with men than women. There is a cultural divide there which transcends generational shifts. As more people show public face due to a life being lived in the exposure of the internet, their deeper selves are buried deeper. Shared with a bare few. Isolating us further.

Where we’ll land, as to stable norms, is still being established. But it seems we establish more surface relationships. More treacherous parasocial relationships. With few bedrock ties. Leaving us more socially and emotionally vulnerable. And not the good kind of vulnerable.

It’s interesting at a remove. But living within such structures while desiring deep connections, is a recipe for pain. That dull ache of without.

Linguistic navel gazing

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Words have both literal and contextual meanings. To limit ourselves to the literal is to diminish our ability to perceive beyond mere surface and into the heart of the world.

Let us take up an example.

Mend: repair something that is broken or damaged
Fix: mend or repair

Those are the definitions of those words.

But what do we feel when we say we are fixing something? The implication is that its hard and we are using outside forces to make(force) something into a working mode.

It’s very much an outside in word. Fix implies that outside influence, outside actions are the only means of bringing something back to function.

Now lets look at mend.
Mend feels softer. It feels like I am inside the thing or a part of the thing. It is more like healing. A slow rebinding to allow something to be whole.

It does not insist on itself. It offers instead.

To put another way, if I surgically staple a wound closed I have fixed it. The wound is closed.

But its not, is it? Not until the wound is mended and the staples(the fix) are no longer needed.

So we could consider that a fix is a temporary solution for a permanent problem and only by mending the problem does the problem cease.

We have a tendency to fix things. To implement hasty(implying quick and slipshod) fixes and fail to mend the underlying wound.

Tackling things from a vocabulary point of view may seem foolish but it is through language that we see and interpret our world. It is a base and fundamental building block for society. And we need to examine and construct it with care.

Holidays are approaching

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I’ve stayed up way too late doing nothing in particular. Watching strange shows from Brazil with great English voice dubbing. Looking at my phone wanting to feel connected…
Then it flashes me the battery warning and I think, “probably time to go to bed.” My cats asleep in the middle of my bed and I’ll displace her so instead I remember I need to write a post for tomorrow.

This week is Thanksgiving in the USA. Another holiday that has its roots in blood. As if all holidays aren’t problematic icons embodied in a yearly ritual to enshrine the victory of one group over another. I mean it’s hypocritical to teach that it’s about some historical togetherness and all but I question whether or not that actually matters. Knowing the truth about history is a good thing and it can help avoid past mistakes in favor of all new atrocities.

But being mad about a holiday seems pointless. Get together and change it if you need to. Change the name and people’s cultural relationship to it. But mostly, it’s an excuse.

That correct. All holidays are an excuse. Mostly it’s to take a day off. For those lucky enough to be able to afford it. And even for those who can’t, its the opportunity to say fuck it, I’m taking this time for myself. For my family, if you’re into that kind straight laced social structure. It’s a way to be irresponsible in a state sanctioned corporate sponsored commercially acceptable way.

And it’s a time to say hi to that cousin you only vaguely remember. To try to restrain yourself, or maybe this is just me, from getting into sociopolitical arguments with people capable of only spouting talking points and appeals to authority. (Headline-If you are making an appeal to authority without data to back it up, you’ve already lost the argument.) And eat food you wouldn’t normally eat.

Some people, mythically to my mind, get to hang out with friends and have fun. I’ve never seen it, except on Single person Christmas, aka Halloween, and even then that a socially awkward sexually charged powder keg. It’s one overly fruity mixed drink away from making a pass at your married boss with his wife right there. Or laughing at someone’s use of fetish gear as costume and demonstrating proper flogger technique in front of people you know are friends of friends who will spread that like wildfire.
Not that this is a bad thing, I just don’t like awkward conversations about what drunk, no filter me, said when I am sober slight filter me.

Maybe I’m just not who these Holidays are aimed at. I know there are people who love this stuff. Love the gossip about nothing and the skirting of taboo topics at least until someone says grace.

Another thing I don’t do. I’m fairly certain my lip service Christian family would neither take a blessing from my faith nor would my faith be likely to bestow blessings. Honestly, if asked for a blessing, I think the proper response would be something like, “The choices we make have consequences. Whether those consequences are good or bad depends on where you are standing when they occur. This means that whether we act or not, either is a choice. Make sure you make your choices wherever possible. Don’t allow your choices to make you.”

But there is no appeal to a higher authority which seems to be the point of prayer.

So maybe I just don’t get it. Or maybe I do. But in any case, Holidays are meant for people to pause and see. To look around in the frenetic drawn out scream, and maybe, for once, listen.

But what do I know? I’m just a man who needs to move his cat, so he can go to sleep.