I'm struck with an insight. It's almost never “how,” only “that” something is willing and able to be achieved. We spend considerable amounts of time arguing semantics or criticizing styles. We bring “alternative facts” to the table completely immune to the evisceration of language. We inject “isms” and “ocracies” to guide invisible psychological hands in sweeping along taken for granted trends. It's at the heart of our conception of ourselves, and we don't even put a voice to it.
I never let things go. I shut up about things. I add a million lines of perspective to them. But I never let them go. I rarely think about my “first love,” and my current ex is significantly more of a point of intrigue than the harbinger of uncontrolled feelings forcing themselves into my attention. The physical memory of my experiences with them still exists. The ability to smile or cry (well, maybe not cry) upon reflection is real. It doesn't really matter “how” I feel though. It didn't matter at the time, and I hardly think it will matter how it “resolves” to be felt moments before my death. What truly mattered was “that” I was willing to put myself through it.
I like to argue. This is to distinguish from “fighting.” I'm perfectly aware that words don't change people's minds alone. I learned that the hard way trying to talk down a swinging mother. I learned it the hard way reading books and citing evidence for ideologues. I learned it from psychological literature about how people base their decisions and what their very brains are wired like to keep them from changing too often or too quickly. We act under the collective delusion that words are more powerful than they are, because we irrationally defer to our feelings to describe their purpose. It's easier to offer a short-hand quote from an “inspiring” and “emotionally compelling” orator, than it is to parse out the complexity of the person themselves. “How” they said it has significantly less to do with “that” you've managed to use it for your feelings. (Think of every paraphrased version of “I have a dream” or misquoted movie.)
I like to experiment and create. I'm not afraid of “failure.” This at times looks like running headlong into the wind before accounting for everything that might make my life easier. But to spend too much time in research mode is to miss the point. There's an infinite amount of ways you can try to achieve something. You can think one dollar at a time, insured or not, cold or comfortable, with one trusted ally or a dozen piddling peons, and while you might inspire a biopic, it will only be “that” which people can point at which you've achieved from which they'll shower praise or condemnation. When you're willing, you try. If you're unable to recognize, you can't discover the will, therefore you'll never try. To speak to the point in the opening language of the blog, if you're primarily concerned with “how,” you'll subvert any capacity to create “that.”
It should be obvious, but it's not, this isn't an argument for the complete disavowing of details. This doesn't mean you shouldn't prefer a strong future accounting foundation where you can properly flood Houston in a way that doesn't require destroying houses. Here we must make a distinction between known and unknown. It wasn't some kind of moral or social imperative to develop flood plains in the way that one is implored to sort themselves out psychologically in their relationships, or in their creative orientation in the world. You don't know how important it is to break down fear or anger barriers like you know if you put a house in a stupid spot, something stupid can happen to it.
When it comes to confrontation, it doesn't even begin as a properly defined confrontation until both parties are willing to acknowledge “that.” You can argue with the best intentions. You can feel up and down. You can pick every word as deliberately as you might chocolates after biting into the wrong one. It simply does not matter. You won't get your girl back. You won't get your legislation passed. You won't convince the teenage Russian troll you're anything more than fodder for their paycheck.
“That” can take on infinite forms. If you want to try and be coherent, you reduce “that” to a set of observations about the psychical world or maybe root it in the terms of your surrender. If I'm willing to see a dozen projects try to be operated at once, “that” has to be my budget and tolerance for failure. Maybe I sell some t-shirts and eventually make analogous money to my step-mom. The barely considered hassle of what it means to find, wash, press, picture, store, list, and ship all became secondary to “that” phrase, “$50 is worth the try and first hand knowledge gained.” That I retain the will to try something new is what's important to me. That I understand my road to solvency as many diverging skills and interests trickling in at once underlays my energy to power through what may have been overlooked.
In an argument, “that” should conceivably be what has you bothering to speak to each other in the first place, let alone be together if you're arguing over your relationship. “How” you love someone or communicate is most often secondary (not saying it should be) to “that” they feel a certain way about it. Their willingness to feel hurt, or offended, or to make assumptions about you is significantly more real than any positive qualifier you could use to describe “how” you're relating to one another. You could count more good than bad? Little did you know each bad was a knife inextricably lodged in her heart! You might as well take your pencil recording the numbers and ram that in as well.
I listened to a book recently about how to get people to like you in 90 seconds or less. A line that has stuck with me from it is, “It depends on whether you want to adopt a productive or not attitude.” This book is clearly geared towards those who are socially angry or resentful and perhaps derail their interactions before they ever get started. This guy is a big shot photographer who has to evoke the proper emotion and head tilts from beautiful women who might not even speak his language. So he mirrors and probes and body languages and wah-lah, keeps getting the next gig. One might be tempted to say his effectiveness is in “how” he describes what is essentially manipulating people. I think this is wrong. It's “that” he's willing to do whatever it takes to get the shot that counts.
I think about this when I ask for help. I know “how” to get money out of people. I know “how” to “pitch” and “sell” myself, or some shitty product, for someone else. I know “how” to pay the bills or get girls to like me. I know “how” to “better communicate” depending on what's at stake. I knew precisely “how” my heart would react when I tried for another doomed study stay. But no matter how many times I describe the intimate details that go into the things I'm most proud of creating, all that matters is “that” I had my party house, “that” I created the coffee shop, “that” I stay open and honest with those I wish to be closest to, and “that” I work every day, and try, and sneak into my off hours the rounding up of free or cheap shit to try and sell. “That” garage needs to be renovated on “that” land, and I'm “that” willing to sleep in my car, to keep speaking to important underlying truths about “how” we may one day lean in describing society, let alone my specific efforts.
An ideal is only an ideal in that it can be recognized. As such, without a shared one, we're never going to see what you mean when you describe how you're getting fucked every day.
