Tuesday, March 10, 2009
alright, so i've got the bug. or want to get the bug. i need to find some seedy hooker to give my brain a quick rubdown.
i believe my little tryst this morning ended up circling around communication, so lets start there. we ended up dancing around nonverbal communication, and its effect on the context your words are given. so lets try and pick up with that again.
weirdness, creepiness, oddness, whatever you want to call it. usually very rarely associated with the words themselves. even some of the creepiest things you can say are only creepy because you don't give them any subtext, and on their own they are just unfathomable. there is really no way to avoid looking weird to other people. sometimes it just happen and goes unnoticed until it is too late. i mean, for me, it is usually just my presence that is the weird thing, usually in combination with a lack of talking. you get that blank stare, as both people are looking at each other expectantly, waiting for something to happen. and when it doesn't, and their is no reaction, things get weird. i guess i have a sort of sensitivity that immediately assigns that weirdness to myself. until right now as i was writing this, i never really thought about the fact that the other person is probably sitting there at the same time thinking "i wonder if i look weird right now in this awkward moment?" anyways, once that moment hits, i haven't really found a whole lot to fix the situation. if there was conversation to be had, it probably would still be flowing. sometimes i think the best way to diffuse the situation is to shrug and walk away, allow the weirdness to dissipate. it seems rude, but oh well. better rude than weird i guess. you can't be a model of politeness anyways. if tried to act properly in every aspect of your life, you would never laugh at a joke, you would never feel a rush of adrenaline, you would never get laid. that wouldn't be the greatest existence.
anyways, i lost my train of thought there thinking about sex. oh well. nonverbal communication i believe it was. this is a hard thing to really conceptualize for me. neutrality comes pretty naturally to me. i think i have spent too much time sitting there wondering why people are looking at me, trying to figure out why i am so weird when it isn't really that, they are just trying to pick up on something, any sort of cue from me to try and get a grasp of where i am coming from. that sort of mystery can have its advantages too, but it isn't really something you can rely on or plan for. contrived mystery just seems like social manipulation to me. bullshit hiding behind other bullshit to make itself look better by comparison. no, enforced neutrality isn't the way to go. it is no way to avoid awkwardness, it breeds it instead. people don't really care. they just want hints into what you are thinking, a little window into your minds so they can satisfy their voyeuristic tendencies. you can say pretty much anything you want, and as long as they can pick up some sort of genuine emotion driving the idea, they won't really care. that is, unless it is too deviant, and even then only when it is so unavoidably direct that it forces them to deal with it. people are more than happy to use the gray areas of innuendo to avoid things they don't feel like dealing with. i swear, some people get off on that shit, flirting with deviancy while never allowing themselves to fully register an impure thought.
ah well, anyways, say whatever you want. most people aren't fully listening anyways, they are just hunting for nonverbal context to cheat their way through social interaction. which is fine. it is actually pretty liberating. it makes this social interaction so much easier to wade through. for the most part i don't really care about searching for the exact words i need anymore, unless i am really trying to convey a specific idea to someone. most of the time, the gist of what i want to say comes out anyways, and that is a good starting point for any conversation. i mean, really, if we never had to explain ourselves, how would we sustain a dialogue? every interaction you have would follow the same formula. person a: "this, with no room for interpretation." person b: "i agree/disagree." and then you are pretty much done. that is no fun.
so yeah, there is something very frustrating to me about not being able to tell someone what i mean. this is true, and will always kind of bug me. unless i somehow develop a knack for brilliant oration, this frustration will always be there. but that is ok. it can actually be very fun saying less than you mean, and leave things open to people's interpretation. i wish i could say i always do this on purpose, but i don't. sometimes, it is because i just don't know how to clarify, or exactly where i was going with something, but the point still remains. it is a very powerful communicative tool, i think, forcing someone to read your nonverbal context to figure out exactly what you meant. i am a naturally mischievous person, so sometimes i will do this on purpose, so i can see the contented look as the pieces fall into place when i finally do expand that thought at a later point in the conversation. isn't that why most people stay in a conversation, to figure out what is going on in someone else's head? yeah, sometimes you are in a conversation just so you can tell someone what you know, but that goes back to our little persons a/b scenario. if that is your only goal behind communication, why bother? why should someone even try to care? it is so much more fun figuring things out in tandem, or at the very least, leading someone to a conclusion in their own mind, instead of just plopping it down in front of them and expecting it to be meaningful to them, devoid of the proper context.
maybe that is the sign of a truly gifted conversationalist, being able to uphold your side of the conversation without ever saying anything. what do they say about jazz, sometimes it is about the notes you don't play, not the ones you do?
i believe my little tryst this morning ended up circling around communication, so lets start there. we ended up dancing around nonverbal communication, and its effect on the context your words are given. so lets try and pick up with that again.
weirdness, creepiness, oddness, whatever you want to call it. usually very rarely associated with the words themselves. even some of the creepiest things you can say are only creepy because you don't give them any subtext, and on their own they are just unfathomable. there is really no way to avoid looking weird to other people. sometimes it just happen and goes unnoticed until it is too late. i mean, for me, it is usually just my presence that is the weird thing, usually in combination with a lack of talking. you get that blank stare, as both people are looking at each other expectantly, waiting for something to happen. and when it doesn't, and their is no reaction, things get weird. i guess i have a sort of sensitivity that immediately assigns that weirdness to myself. until right now as i was writing this, i never really thought about the fact that the other person is probably sitting there at the same time thinking "i wonder if i look weird right now in this awkward moment?" anyways, once that moment hits, i haven't really found a whole lot to fix the situation. if there was conversation to be had, it probably would still be flowing. sometimes i think the best way to diffuse the situation is to shrug and walk away, allow the weirdness to dissipate. it seems rude, but oh well. better rude than weird i guess. you can't be a model of politeness anyways. if tried to act properly in every aspect of your life, you would never laugh at a joke, you would never feel a rush of adrenaline, you would never get laid. that wouldn't be the greatest existence.
anyways, i lost my train of thought there thinking about sex. oh well. nonverbal communication i believe it was. this is a hard thing to really conceptualize for me. neutrality comes pretty naturally to me. i think i have spent too much time sitting there wondering why people are looking at me, trying to figure out why i am so weird when it isn't really that, they are just trying to pick up on something, any sort of cue from me to try and get a grasp of where i am coming from. that sort of mystery can have its advantages too, but it isn't really something you can rely on or plan for. contrived mystery just seems like social manipulation to me. bullshit hiding behind other bullshit to make itself look better by comparison. no, enforced neutrality isn't the way to go. it is no way to avoid awkwardness, it breeds it instead. people don't really care. they just want hints into what you are thinking, a little window into your minds so they can satisfy their voyeuristic tendencies. you can say pretty much anything you want, and as long as they can pick up some sort of genuine emotion driving the idea, they won't really care. that is, unless it is too deviant, and even then only when it is so unavoidably direct that it forces them to deal with it. people are more than happy to use the gray areas of innuendo to avoid things they don't feel like dealing with. i swear, some people get off on that shit, flirting with deviancy while never allowing themselves to fully register an impure thought.
ah well, anyways, say whatever you want. most people aren't fully listening anyways, they are just hunting for nonverbal context to cheat their way through social interaction. which is fine. it is actually pretty liberating. it makes this social interaction so much easier to wade through. for the most part i don't really care about searching for the exact words i need anymore, unless i am really trying to convey a specific idea to someone. most of the time, the gist of what i want to say comes out anyways, and that is a good starting point for any conversation. i mean, really, if we never had to explain ourselves, how would we sustain a dialogue? every interaction you have would follow the same formula. person a: "this, with no room for interpretation." person b: "i agree/disagree." and then you are pretty much done. that is no fun.
so yeah, there is something very frustrating to me about not being able to tell someone what i mean. this is true, and will always kind of bug me. unless i somehow develop a knack for brilliant oration, this frustration will always be there. but that is ok. it can actually be very fun saying less than you mean, and leave things open to people's interpretation. i wish i could say i always do this on purpose, but i don't. sometimes, it is because i just don't know how to clarify, or exactly where i was going with something, but the point still remains. it is a very powerful communicative tool, i think, forcing someone to read your nonverbal context to figure out exactly what you meant. i am a naturally mischievous person, so sometimes i will do this on purpose, so i can see the contented look as the pieces fall into place when i finally do expand that thought at a later point in the conversation. isn't that why most people stay in a conversation, to figure out what is going on in someone else's head? yeah, sometimes you are in a conversation just so you can tell someone what you know, but that goes back to our little persons a/b scenario. if that is your only goal behind communication, why bother? why should someone even try to care? it is so much more fun figuring things out in tandem, or at the very least, leading someone to a conclusion in their own mind, instead of just plopping it down in front of them and expecting it to be meaningful to them, devoid of the proper context.
maybe that is the sign of a truly gifted conversationalist, being able to uphold your side of the conversation without ever saying anything. what do they say about jazz, sometimes it is about the notes you don't play, not the ones you do?
