#anrel

[beingharsh]

I am well aware that no one has mind reading capabilities and that it would be unfair to expect one to spontaneously develop such a superpower. But also, I would like you to take a look around society and notice that some people, and there are patterns around who these people tend to be, have developed the skill set to preemptively anticipate the wants and needs of others and act on them, oftentimes to the extent of their own detriment and with the subject of this anticipatory power remaining blissfully unaware that this has even taken place. Am I talking about women or cult leaders or artists or politicians? Am I referring to playing or people pleasing or teaching or flirting or masking or passing or marketing or code-switching or performance or narcissism? Turns out, sometimes folks are actually quite good at reading the room and/or reading other people. Perceiving and or calculating cause and effect involves neither telepathy nor clairvoyance; these are skills that can be learned, developed intentionally and/or intuitively. Skills that can be used in many ways, and within systems of hierarchy often deployed instead as either shields or weapons. They can be destructive or protective or creative. Used to survive or to thrive.

The Art of Semantics, AnRel

[beingharsh]

“Why? Why can't I just use the words I want to use? Why don't you put forth the effort to understand my intention, my circumstances, and my character? Why can't I simply be understood as the person that I perceive myself to be? I don't like having to hedge my sentences, or second guess myself, or study your particular semantics. If I cannot hear you, it is because you are not communicating properly, for you see, communication must occur on my terms or else it does not count. You are asking too much.” And there is some truth to this, right? It is a lot to ask. But it is far more to demand, unceremoniously piled on to others. Especially in regards to the consequences of certain individuals and populations constantly having to do the work of all parties, picking up multiple shifts in a row, existing a continuous state of labour without reward or reprieve because the work must be done and gradually fewer can do it. It is expensive beyond recognition, let alone reason. And I promise you the cost will be yours to bear as we collectively price ourselves out of existence. You can take a break, but you cannot opt out. If you want or need perfect semantic alignment, then be alone. But be alone generatively; do not resist re-evaluation. Sit with the knot. Camp at its base, go for a walk, peer around the edges if you can. Remember that conflict resolution isn't linear and not all problems can be solved by you. Rest and refuel without succumbing to the abyss so that you can rejoin us when you're ready. 

The Art of Semantics, AnRel

[beingharsh]

Let us weave in and out of structure and chaos so fluidly their pieces become ours. No one understands you perfectly, and no one ever will. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a beautiful thing. Your value is intrinsic, your perspective always changing yet unchangingly unique. Your participation is desired and your engagement a testament to your existence, the mark left in your wake. You are the legacy of what came before you and your legacy is the what that comes next. We are connected like fungi, but you are not fungi. You are human. Ignorance and brilliance rolled into one, not two simultaneous truths, but the same truth. Good communication is gorging yourself on that truth, fuel burnt to forge connection with that which lies beyond, the greater sum of our parts. We cultivate creation and performance to express what cannot be said simply, convey that which is too complex to fit in a box, wrapped up neatly and tied off with a bow. Trying to engage, interact, express, make visible, make real not just what is, but what’s been, and what may be. This is what I see, this is what I know, this is what it means to me. Do you see what I mean? Does this mean anything to you? What does it mean? I do not have all the answers, yet I am more than willing to bend to the will of those who will dance with me. I am both art and artist, creator and creation, the undead corpse of an auteur; decay existing as an extant form of life. 

The Art of Semantics, AnRel

[beingharsh]

The idea that jargon exists to make communication overly complex or inaccessible as a way to gatekeep certain ideas or spaces or authoritative status within these contexts is simply not the case, or at least not the whole story. I won't deny that jargon is used like that and used like that often, and I certainly won't deny the harmful effects that this has had on our ability to communicate with people who do not share our collection of niche experiences. When people complain about jargon, they are complaining about being on the outside of a particular ingroup, lamenting the inaccessibility granted them. But the problem with jargon isn't jargon...it's hierarchy. Jargon is in many ways a microcosm for both the best and worst effects of semantic alignment. The problem is not jargon, it is the decontextualization of jargon, of condensing complexity into something resembling simplicity and then behaving as though they are the same thing. It is the weaponization of semantics.

[beingharsh]

There is great comfort and relief to be found in semantic alignment, in meeting people you click with, and that feeling that someone just gets you. But that comfort is rooted in a false sense of security, and that relief is always temporary. No matter how like you someone may be, no matter how close you may become, they will never be you.  While we are a combinations of machinations, in a way extensions of a greater whole, we cannot ever be the extension of any particular individual. There is no such thing as perfect alignment. Eventually, you will discover misalignments, and without the capacity to collaborate, we will always resort back to the tools of hierarchy in an attempt to eliminate them. Domination and oppression, assimilation and alienation. We are all talking past each other constantly in little ways that seem not to matter much at any given moment, but that do add up over time into massive structural deficiencies. Turns out there's more than one way to increase semantic alignment within a dynamic. And while that initial baseline can serve as a much needed foundation for collaboration, it can and very often does also serve to mask the existence of inevitable misalignments.

The Art of Semantics, AnRel

[beingharsh]

Devaluing certain forms of communication doesn’t make them go away, and in fact cannot make them go away – not entirely – because the standardized forms of communication, the ones deemed valuable by modern society, are wholly insufficient on their own. We rely on complexity in order to reference simplicity reliably. Non-verbal, non-vocal, non-linear, non-citable, non-direct, non-standard communication is being utilized and telegraphed regardless, requisite complexity that makes “direct” or “standard” communication via words possible. All communication variables matter and are relevant, including tone, and body language, and circumstance, and mannerisms, and behaviour, and silence. They are still rife with meaning – missed. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make these variables disappear, it just drains our collective ability to navigate – and I cannot stress this enough – all communication ever. Context is everything. And worse – worse, right – is that it pushes the labour of translation into the margins, and onto the marginalized. Having to one-sidedly navigate under-acknowledged, under-experienced, under-understood, and collectively unlearned methods of communication in order to connect, participate, hear and be heard – in order to survive as social beings within a species that has evolved to depend on one other – leads to eventual & inevitable burn-out, assimilation and alienation. It leads to compartmentalization, atomization, code-switching, masking, passing, tearing ourselves and each other up to fit into boxes, ripping up roots by the handful and being surprised when communication…fails. Hm.

[willow0wisp]

[the-rabid-fox]