You will annoy, and yet

"He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine," said Dorothea, inconsiderately.
"You mean that he appears silly."
"No, no," said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on her sister's a moment, "but he does not talk equally well on all subjects."
"I should think none but disagreeable people do," said Celia, in her usual purring way. "They must be very dreadful to live with. Only think! at breakfast, and always."*

Summary of Celia's contribution: Disagreeable people are those that talk equally well on all subjects. and such people are dreadful to live with, especially at breakfast, and always.

Drilling down: To talk equally well on all subjects means--is knowledgeable, very, and/or speaks convincingly as if s/he is knowledgeable, albeit annoying virtually (as in "in truth") always.

For who would communicate "what they know": You will annoy.

Guide to map (biased): Ask questions. Pronounce sparingly, and only if asked overtly or tacitly.

Alternatively, Do the homework and pounce; start or finish the fray.

On the other hand, Dorothea: Regardless of appearances and limits in knowledge and ways of expression, her beau is a good person. You have to know him [the person]. 

Guide to revised map (also biased): A little understanding, a little patience, a little license, a little forgiveness, a little live-and-let-live, a little . . . what should we call it?

Meta guide to maps: Withdraw or engage. To withdraw is clear. But engage? how?  (Why is another question.)

Engage with the best that you know--and as most openly and effectively as you can till words end, even if not all yours are those agreed upon as sufficient to proceed.

Thus it is clichés all the way up and down beginning with: Choose your frays.

_____
* _Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life_, George Eliot.
** One answer appears previously and rationalizes this blog.

What do you know—about us?

That, when it is over, we shall meet again where there is no marriage, where there is nothing gross, where love perfect and immortal reigns and passion is forgotten. There that we love each other will make no heart sore, not even hers whom here, perhaps, we have wronged; there will be no jealousies, since each and all, themselves happy in their own way and according to their own destinies, will rejoice in the happiness of others. There, too, our life will be one life, our work one work, our thought one thought—nothing more shall separate us at all in that place where there is no change or shadow of turning. Therefore," and she clasped her hands and looked upwards, her face shining like a saint’s, although the tears ran down it, "therefore, ‘O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’
_Stella Fregelius, A Tale of Three Destinies_ By H. Rider Haggard

Would we have existence homogenized thus? 

How long could it be that we would reside in this loving bliss before we would remember life as it was with places to go and people to meet? films to experience with tears of laughter or those of grief? meals to savor and satiate, giving us full stomachs to boast over with guiltless smiles at our overindulgence? 

Would we not miss changes and differences and spice and variety?

I know this about me among us. I would find suspended animation a suspect state if it offered residing just so forever and ever. 

Subtract the human from me to embrace me thus, so that I could not move or live in awareness without longing, without contrast to show what is good and true and beautiful, without the bliss of living moment to moment in passionate pursuit . . . and have that interruption that brings the light of how good it was and can be again and again with but will and choice and action.

However, I'd do without the death part. (It is only human, no? to contradict oneself, or deny the inevitable.)

A correspondent wrote

A correspondent wrote that I was condescending, lecturing, angry(?), and so again I am caught short, or brought up short--what is the idiom? because of my words.

The last time this happened, not so very long ago, I resolved to stop all corresponding (two-way communication/conversation) that I tried to maintain and develop via email. The resolve included limits--only answering questions when asked or asking questions. 

Offer no subjects to discuss or contributions to what others are interested in.

It has gone well until this recent step into it, unawares I was upsetting those who seem to prefer protected conversation spaces, or safe subjects sanitized. 

In contrition this time, I confess I believe and have always believed this from _She_.

http://catalog.lambertvillelibrary.org/texts/English/haggard/she/

 

[S]o I lay and watched the stars come out by thousands, till all the immense arch of heaven was strewn with glittering points, and every point a world! Here was a glorious sight by which man might well measure his own insignificance! Soon I gave up thinking about it, for the mind wearies easily when it strives to grapple with the Infinite, and to trace the footsteps of the Almighty as he strides from sphere to sphere, or deduce His purpose from His works. Such things are not for us to know. Knowledge is to the strong, and we are weak. Too much wisdom would perchance blind our imperfect sight, and too much strength would make us drunk, and over-weight our feeble reason till it fell and we were drowned in the depths of our own vanity. For what is the first result of man's increased knowledge interpreted from Nature's book by the persistent effort of his purblind observation? It is not but too often to make him question the existence of his Maker, or indeed of any intelligent purpose beyond his own? The truth is veiled, because we could no more look upon her glory than we can upon the sun. It would destroy us. Full knowledge is not for man as man is here, for his capacities, which he is apt to think so great, are indeed but small. The vessel is soon filled, and, were one-thousandth part of the unutterable and silent wisdom that directs the rolling of those shining spheres, and the Force which makes them roll, pressed into it, it would be shattered into fragments. Perhaps in some other place and time it may be otherwise, who can tell? Here the lot of man born of the flesh is but to endure midst toil and tribulation, to catch at the bubbles blown by Fate, which he calls pleasure, thankful if before they burst they rest a moment in his hand, and when the tragedy is played out, and his hour comes to perish, to pass humbly whither he knows not.
_She: A History of Adventure_ by H. Rider Haggard

But no one yet has censorship authority over this space, where I, at least, can try to work things out.

Your self-importance is equal to

This opinion piece has been posted all round the place. 

An Open Letter to the Legion of Lamentation*
By: E.P. Unum
July 13, 2020

I got a copy seemingly authored by this guy.

Here is my byte, which I can easily defend based on his(?) words.** But I won't bother, today.

98 per cent bullshit. No discussion with this guy, and ignorant of key points and deeper analysis of subjects that he pretends to know something about. Just another America-is-the-greatest blowhard shooting his mouth off. A shotgun blast any particle of which requires more information, more context, more thought, and more understanding.

Rip, you can Rest In Peace and crawl back into your cave. The fact that you believe anyone is interested in what you think/believe is just the least of the chains that your entitled culture (take a sip of your elitist beverage) has bound you up in and from which some of us are thankful we are still able to see for what they—the chains—are and escape to higher and better ideas and action. Set yourself free of us now that you have had your say and shut up and listen more carefully to others, or just go ahead and let others live as we let you. Your self-importance is equal, and no more, to that of mine and that of other citizens.

Respectfully yours . . .

___

* https://liberalsarenuts.com/2020/07/29/an-open-letter-to-the-legion-of-lamentation/. BYW, this site is full of stuff the above can be used to describe.

** "Being offended isn’t a mark of virtue; it’s a sign that you’re a big, blubbering baby who will throw a tantrum if you can’t get your way. Wagging fingers and shouting obscenities at me is just plain disrespectful, and might get you a punch in the nose." Now, who comes first to mind who can justifiably be described this way? If the author's answer is the same as mine, which I don't believe to be the case, then we have two of them at least.

A voyage at sea to change perspectives--DRAFT

[06.08.20 Updated. The following was composed from notes provided as background and philosophy to a business enterprise involving sea voyages infused with new challenges for participants-as-crew from which to become, or become again, full-bodied self-aware and to make resolves to act on their dreams. In a phrase, to experience inspiration (again).

These words have been provided for that enterprise's use, should they find them descriptive of what their effort currently envisions. I take no credit for what I have tried to express for others more enlightened and inspired than I.]

Embrace meaning and direction to live life to the max. Such sage advise notwithstanding, we confine ourselves sometimes in our own perspective, and as that doesn't help us survive and thrive, we become stuck and perhaps temporarily lost. To be confused about or to lack meaning prevents living life as we would, in concert with the highest and best expression of ourselves. We become immersed in a seeming fishbowl with blurred vision to where we are and what is beyond.

By contrast, floating at a unique but ever changing point on life's ocean of endless horizons in all directions and immeasurable heights above and depths below, appears attractive and reassuring. Some may be content to ride the winds and currents. But for others infinite possibilities overwhelm, and not content in a timeless, aimless float, are compelled to know where they are and where they can go, and then set off decisively on their journey.

Give me a compass. Calculations performed at twilight bring clarity of location and direction in daylight. The coordinates using one's star illuminate a sense of self and the singular environment in which one lives. It is as if one would use the heavens to navigate in a sea of possibilities using present location, one's chosen star, and the horizon ahead.

There are no ready answers for moving out of darkness or uncertainty except first to use the knowledge and awareness of now you, body and soul, are here. Informed by experience plus acquired knowledge and expertise nested in values and beliefs show the possibilities and the ways to head. As and after you articulate your own place and aimed-for possibilities, framing anew results. The fresh air of renewed perspective lets you breathe and refresh your spirit, in a phrase, to be inspired. Would that we could accelerate our purpose by feeling and smelling and breathing that fresh air and having the body-felt experience of being alive that comes from succeeding at new challenges.

Show me how to use the sextant you are suggesting. The metaphorical sextant requires your current position. You find, or re-discover that by sensing yourself where you are in the clearest terms possible. Language is a primary means for people to express who they are to themselves. Your unique identity composed of knowledge, skills, experience, attitudes and personal characteristics, including talents, has to be described for self realization and vitality. To know thyself is not automatic. All aspects need to be examined anew and brought together again. A separate time and place can aid this process, as can some guidelines for completing the task.

The sextant requires a point in the heavens to light the way. This is the second element--what you are about, meaning or purpose, your star. You know in your heart what that is--the light in your eyes that others say they see, the flame that burns eternally inside and you feel the burn almost physically. It is that which haunts and starves your soul if ignored or delayed. It is something you are driven to do something about, to get on with, without which you cannot feel fulfilled. If you are not clear what that is, you are perhaps staring at what is so close it is hard to focus. Sometimes we need different mirrors that other eyes provide to help us realize what was there all along, perhaps from fellow travelers and catalysts, who have different perspectives on what we think we are about.

To complete the triangulation with an imaginary sextant requires a horizon or navigation point in the distance. Although always advancing as you move toward it, at any given time you can fix that point, which sets direction, maps your journey, and readies the sails for your journey. As the sages have also said, the trip takes you rather than the other way round. And in surrendering to the charts of your voyage bequeaths power and  motivation to embark and persist. The optimism that results reconnects you to the goodness of being, and being who you are. Although you may not need it, it is reassuring to have the support of fellow travelers and those who have gone before, call them catalysts, as you conquer new challenges to strengthen the resources you have within.

Oh, to escape from my fears of facing me, much less venturing forth through new experiences.  How to re-kindle the confidence that lets one explore endless possibilities with curiosity and benefit from new and refreshing experiences? You can do it alone, and essentially we all do. But with the support of compassionate and in their own right expert fellow crew members in a safe and supportive environment for rejuvenating you, uncertain seas become less threatening, calm, and sure; and prevailing gentle breezes of accomplishment will power you and whatever your enterprise on your way.

There may be occasional miscalculations. You can always re-calibrate and correct your course. Whatever seems to impede an important and necessary trip is temporary and perhaps illusory. Having or recalling when you felt inspiration to reach for your star keeps you oriented and on course.

Voyage at sea. The literal sea calls to some as a particularly apt venue through which to acquire new or renewed meaning and a clearer focus on living life as you would. It is a time and place away to focus on what it is you want and need in life. Some will not find the sea as their chosen way out of the doldrums or fishbowl. But for those who find this way of adventure to understanding and purposeful action, and given the invitation to join others on such a journey, a decision to board ship is but a nanosecond's consideration. Promised rewards earned through dedication and work toward what will fulfill await.

Know that taking readings with your sextant often requires a bit of coaxing and practice. Experiencing something new, yet others have safely traveled through before, changes perspectives and will tax you, but the taxes are minimal. Others have gone before and can attest to the tried and trusted ways out of so-called fishbowl perspectives, which are by definition limiting.

The distance between my perspective today and the perspective of who I think I should be is the intensity of inspiration. The moment I developed a new prospective with the least toll on myself and my environment is the feeling of inspiration.*

Although others have taken a sea voyage before and found themselves by surrendering in pursuit of their outer limits of what is comfortable and familiar, and their experiences have necessarily been different because they were different people and not you, anticipate that your voyage will certainly be unique. Encountering different perspectives on the journey and having entirely unique experiences along your way enrich one's ability to accept and adapt with the least resistance and the least threat to the essence of you. Going beyond one's patterned perspective will introduce you to new and different ones that will assuredly enrich what it is you aspire to do with the time we have to live life to the max.

_____
* Direct quote from the founder.

Tautological twist--DRAFT 4 with Addendum

[Updated: 06.07.20]

All speech is political. Or, what any expression asks of us.

If we understand speech as "engaging in the creation and advocacy of realities through the invention, elaboration, or imposition of discourse,"* the term political does not constrain us in understanding that all speech is just that, political.

Why discourse and not all expression? Yes, why not, for an in-your-face expression in any form functions the same way. It is as if what one attends to, even if just to notice and move on, shouts: "Look at me, hear me, smell me, taste me, touch me, feel me . . . understand me, don't dismiss me, remember me, act as if you cared. . . ."

Thesis: Once one attends to that which has been expressed and before s/he fully re-cognizes the content or message, the invitation to discourse interaction completes the validity of the claim that all speech, that is expression, is political, having to do with power over an other.

Expression, in the broadest sense, imposes its presence to an attending percipient and at the same time attempts to colonize present awareness with itself and its import, if not more. Making this demand evidences inherent authority and power, even if the effect is the import's dismissal, or is it export's?

Now take the above paragraphs. In asserting what they do, they ask you to consider if not buy the explication. In form (words strung together) and content (meaning), we have a kind of co-incidence. As the meaning of the expression says all speech is political, the utterance by the nature of utterances (expression) at the same time says the same thing, or more accurately, enacts it.

Funny that that seems/is so, is it not? Reading, listening, viewing, etc., self proclaim--Pay Attention (at least).

One could say more about "all speech is political", for example what famous person first uttered this idea, what philosophical development it has had over the centuries, who were its historical or civic champions for belief in its truth or validity, why it should only obtain when matters of politics and government are concerned, and so forth; however, mere existence, ready-at-hand to be attended to, suffices to prove the simple self-evidency of what speech/expression is at the most fundamental, phenomenological level, of or having to do with the exertion of power and persuasion to achieve some effect on the percipient, or audience.

Now all this is a rabbit hole, or performative jumble. If what I assert in form is at the same time an example of what I assert in meaning (content), and such an explanation or description may be universally applied, then this perhaps is some kind of hermeneutic spiral to infinity, or  hall of mirrors with no end to seeing the same image reflected again and again up to and, by extension, beyond the horizon, or fruitless Sisyphusian conundrum. In sum, my thesis is a trivial pursuit most feel unnecessary to say or realize.

On the other hand, having gone to this depth of the reflexivity of expression, I would call this insight(?), an inescapable tautological twist, and as valid and "true" as any other defense of the opening assertion that better and brighter stars have argued.

So be it for now till a lighter, clearer day dawns, if I may speak with authority and do gently impose upon thee.
_____
* Brown, Richard Harvey, _Society as Text: Essays on Rhetoric, Reason, and Reality_, University of Chicago Press, 1987

ADDENDUM (29.07.20)

If you are reading this sentence and trying to take in what it says, you are being manipulated to do something the words intend for you to do.

Words, or any expression put out and available for readers and others to receive or perceive, have a minimum of two reasons for existence. 

+ One, to convey something--an idea, feeling, information, etc.

+ Two (as you are fulfilling the first reason for the words being there before you) the words themselves demand: "Look at me, hear me, smell me, taste me, touch me, feel me . . . understand me, don't dismiss me, remember me, act as if you cared. . . ."

Words (or other expressions (e.g., art installation) calling your attention) are a way "power is achieved and used", power being the core idea in the notion of politics or political.

A word to the wise--DRAFT

Re: free speech/expression

1. Isegoria--saying what's on your mind with a view to engage in discussion with others for a better union.

If you frame what you say in terms of this and thoroughly researched information, not opinion (one-sided "interpretation"), you are safer than otherwise.

2. Parrhesia--"the right" to shoot your mouth off anytime, anywhere, to anyone.

"John Stuart Mill argued that the chief threat to free speech in democracies was not the state, but the 'social tyranny' [or worse] of one's fellow citizens."*

What's a person to do? If you must commit parrhesia, note the above caution and guidelines and:

• Limit yourself to the best medium for expression and influence for a specific audience.
• View opposing views as worthy of hearing and understanding, if not acting upon.
• Act upon the agreed upon after listening, paraphrasing, asking questions, highlighting common ground, and, not leastly, having your brief statements heard, etc.
• View most of any other noise as theater and find there entertainment.

Shut your eyes, ears, and mouth otherwise. Someone or something will fill any void. Hold on tight if this happens and you are still passive but "invested".

_____
* https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/two-concepts-of-freedom-of-speech/546791/