[431] Read That Back

I wish we could dispel the idea that people like a challenge. Stated in this way, it's far from complete. It remains a kind of myth about the nature of the human spirit that we rely on to believe “we'll get where we need to be” at an undisclosed time in the future. It carries with it the idea that we're problem solvers of the highest order, leaving out that most of us are in the stands solving the problem of how to juggle a beer, hotdog, and peanuts while the real players who work to bring it all together are on the field and in the box seats.

I'm in the reflective phase of a conversation/argument online that spanned a few days. One of my often stated goals is to get people to talk, challenge my ideas, or ask a question if I said something particularly disingenuously. I got what I wanted. While peppering a general lamentation about “Inequality For All” a motivated commenter of several pasts posts asked me to explain a joke and then expressed how oppressive all laws are and why they were an anarchist. While I don't care to re-explain the details, the situation helped illustrate what happens when you challenge back.

I've been toying with the idea of existence being a giant knot. The name for “string theory” being wonderfully on the nose. I think it speaks to the reason I persistently say “I'm at home talking” more than any particular location I may inhabit. Every unresolved question is a little knot. If we carry these knots, they lock up in the back of my neck and shoulders. You can feel choked by this knot, anchored, or perhaps you think you leave the tangled pile “over there.” I, as far as I can be bothered to, am always picking at it.

It's why as “pointless” as it consistently seems to be referred to, I like to argue online. There's a difference, to me, in feeding trolls and going line by line laying out a clearer and more manageable mess of strings. But what I find psychologically satisfying is more often than not perceived as a mean or threatening attack. In one sense, I'm going to be endlessly at odds with ideas you can't show to be true or at least semi-likely. In another, if you start to feel uncomfortable or persuaded by how something is explained, and I'm not trying to sign you up for Amway, there's probably a deeper truth than the mess of accusations and speculations you're throwing up to hold steady my inquiry.

Perhaps I simply fail in how I ask. I want to be meticulously torn apart line by line and asked questions that are reinforced with historical or scientific examples. I can spend my time explaining jokes that didn't translate, but where is that really taking us?

But can you blame them? This seems to be a kind of beating heart to a lot of my online interactions. People get angry at me for posting blogs in /r/self on reddit. People get genuinely frustrated that I would use an annoying ironic circle jerk to post my ironic annoying circle jerks. People seem to be holding and fighting for their flag, but I rarely understand what it amounts to for them in anything but irrational feeling terms. In that sense, yes, I feel obligated to blame them. I expect something out of you only because I expect something out of myself.

Be redundant, be spacey, but be honest. And honestly, most of the time, you're probably very lazy or very dumb about what you're talking about. I just tend to keep the topic focused on me and my perception first. I've found that habit providing a method and skills for breaking down what you say. Picking apart my teenage mind's ideas of “love” and “god” was considerably harder than my questions about whether or not you'll define your terms. I hate myself when I read my first jabs at unpacking my thoughts. They abused to no end “stream of consciousness.” I slowed down and tried to get better.

And I know this is where you lose 'em. I know the boring details and sincere appeals aren't the kind of cosmic displays of weirdness and passion that people laud with praise and lovingly tumble about the forest with. Though I like the idea of having an audience, I like more that I figured out I write because I need to. I clarify because it's my literal neck on the line. It's a fight to prioritize how and why I think so everything that follows is less likely to embarrass or shame me. I wish more of us would take the time. The conversation is often lost well before you started.