"Imagine a kind of latter-day Conrad character who has worked for a time as a mercenary in Africa, for a time as a doctor in Nepal, for a time as the manager of a nightclub in Miami. The specifics don't matter-- just someone who has seen a lot. Now imagine comparing what's inside this guy's head with what's inside the head of a well-behaved sixteen year old girl from the suburbs. What does he think that would shock her? He knows the world; she knows, or at least embodies, present taboos. Subtract one from the other, and the result is what we can't say."
Monday, October 02, 2006
What we can't say
From Paul Graham’s essential essay:
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9 comments:
the result is ..
Learning ..
i think they both can learn sumthing from each other if givin the chance ..
u always learn something new ..even from observing the behavior of 5 year old children ..
so shocking or not ..it's gotta be known .she needs to break from her circle ..
nice post ..sorry if i'm stepping on ur toes or sumthing ..no disrespect ..
ThunderCAT
Thundercat, I added the source so it makes more sence. Check it out, I found a lot of mind food there. I agree with you about learning (cross-contamination i wrote in my profile). Learning from 5 year old children, definetely. cuz their minds haven't yet got fixed frames. They question everything coz they dont yet know what we can say and what we can't. Convention has less hold over them: they don't know moral values, prejudice, social expectations. Willam S. Burroughs wrote "Only the young bring anything in, and they are not young very long." Coz by the time u r 16 in suburbia, raised by mainstream media according to present taboos, there's not much room for freethinking. Again i quote Graham: "Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers? If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told." So the point is not to "shock her", but to encorage her to see by herself, to discover there's a whole new world out there she hasn't heard about, one for her to explore. We have are own life to live, and that's fucking amazing.
Couldn't agree more really ..
i think we never stop learning from each other ..and i like that ..
i'm not the smartest girl and by far i never claim to be ..but i like to know that i tried my best to experience everything first hand or learn about it if i can't ..in a faint attempt to understand where on earth am i and why the hell do i exsist and trying to understand those who r around me ..Thus, making the world a better place ...
u got my attention ..i'm intrestead in what u've got to say :")
(again ..not trying to preach or whatever ..but it's nice to have an intelectual person to talk that doesn't look down on peeple who try to attempt a conversation with them ..thanx ..)
ThunderCAT
Its interesting u should mention that. Now i ask,where do behaviours take root?Is it genetic,or social conditioning?R we conditioned to think of birth as painful,therefore it is?And on learning,one has to be open to recieve.Whether 16 or 60,if ur mind is closed to new experiences,its difficult to learn..
Thundercat: smart to me is not about IQ, like success is not about making a big name. smart is also about communicating efficiently, being able to make others get what you mean, making what you think available to others and making others tell you what you want to know. according to my concet of what is smart, wastedchix is very smart. the way u set out to do sth and you did it (the description of your blog is just what your blog later became), the way u pair up to do it, the way u built your audience, the way you addressed them, posting almost regularly two times a week (even during hollydays) makes for some of your regular readers to wait for your next post as they wait for the next episode/issue of their favorite tv show or magazine. The way u open many ways of communicating and the use u give to technology. And best of all, the passion to keep your content exciting and honest, to deliver the goodies. Even if you don't realize it, you are starting a career in media and communication. Alternative one, even better: your own. That's great coz there's a lot to be said that nobody says. That's exactly the statement i tried to make with my first post: what is it that we can't say? what is it that nobody says? why is it? to conform? to fit within our peers? I suggest that odds are we just think whatever we're told. To break that is smart.
Lamya, i'm definetely not an authority on the subject, (my major is in mathematics) but I think that human social behaviors are learned in a social environment and through social interaction, and have non-genetic causes and dynamics. You can quote examples of a behaviour rooted in genetic causes, like for example (i'm just recalling an old pub argument i once had with a some friends): a girl who has inherited some kind of beauty, some particular feature, let's say perfectly shaped boobs, will grow up with this attribute and she will learn to wear it. She will be approached but lots of guys, though developing skills for communication; she might find she gets things without much effort, growing to be extrovert and exposed to more situations, acquiring valuable experience. At the same time, others will be comptent with her being pretty, not challenging her to digg deeper into her experiences, so she might develop a personality based only on her looks, becoming shallow. Some kind of success can deform in egotism. Kinda all of her life determined only by her boobs, some genetical feature! But in post-industrial society even body and appearence can be genetically manipulated, or through surgery, so her looks could be the result of a technological process, and though following social dynamics, not genetical. Also along this story I assumed her upbringing taking place within a cultural group that gives particular value to big boobs. In the context of other cultural values, her features could pass perfectly unattended, not even addressed as features. So again I find social environment and social interaction being the key to explain social behaviour.
All communication and all behavior happens in the context of communities sharing a code (from a semiotic approach) or shall i say commuties establishing a set of agreed behavioral coordinations (from a a systemic point of view). After signs and patron, a whole logic arises, but that logic is subsidiary of the way the community evolved. "R we conditioned to think of birth as painful,therefore it is?" Well, the idea of birth, or anything, can't be only one, legitimated by some sort of authority. Not only each community is a whole Universe with its own logic, its own values and its own set of rules (though being unacceptable the mere notion of absolute truths), but is composed of individuals, opening a whole different level, with perception and experience. So we are conditioned by our community, but just in an arbitrary way. Yet through self-discovery we find we can manipulate community expectations to serve our own experience, to make it fullfilling. The girl with the perfectly nice tits could, based on the arrangement of her perceptions in her mind, choose to critically examine her experience, growing to be a key agent of social change and a source of wisdom
And with love, as with learning, one has to be open to recieve. Whether 16 or 60, if ur mind is set in the past or in the future, closed to new experiences, its difficult to make it happen
GRACIAS.
.........
you ask what is it that we can´t say.
well i`d say nothing.
still i ask,
what is it that we can´t see?
you write about prejudice,
so I think to myself where do I still hide my still remaining prejudices?
have I seen something?
you write about fear,
so I explore where do I still hide my own unknown fears.
where they are?
.....
you recommend words where I would find mind food.
so I ask you what is "mind" made up of.
I ask myself this same question every day, and I find the same answer.
The concept of mind includes intelectuality, emotions, and infinite spiritual
knowledge.
"thats obvious"
still wondering, I go to "what´s mind creation then?"
EVERYTHING YOU SEE IS MIND.
the whole thing you see, feel and live in is made up of mind.
so what´s mind food?
IT´S LOVE.
.....
thanks again for
interesting place i found
just on time southern spring is blowing the whole thing away
and we feel so good even without knowing how to explain it better.
everything is mind and everything is love
southern spring, you know i know the feeling
de nada, man
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