The menu is not the meal

[Calamity Jane]

Brat (you too Free... just cuz you said it in an IM doesn't mean you're immune )

 

[Calamity Jane]

To say, "I......",
"I.....", "I........" or "me.." "me...", "me........", was considered selfish and impolite.

Why do we consider being selfish a bad thing? My Self is the only thing that is truly mine. Shouldn't caring for it and supporting it, nurturing it, be important???

 

[freescorfr]

Why do we consider being selfish a bad thing? My Self is the only thing that is truly mine. Shouldn't caring for it and supporting it, nurturing it, be important???

Essential, pagan, essential. And if we don't our kid's don't learn to value themselves either.
Why do you think men are so often accused of not saying what's going on in themselves? Men live in the world of the "is" par excellence.

It's taken me 50 years to say, "I.....".

 

[Calamity Jane]

To paraphrase my favorite sailor

What I am ain't all that I am

Is 'am' the personal version of 'is'?

Do we unconciously limit our own Self by declaring what we are?

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

After being deconstructed for being less clever than I had hoped to be. (Hey, we all have bad nights.) I come back and am amazed with the direction that Free's thread has taken.
What a truth. Saying "I" and putting yourself first is something that is so ingrained in our psyche's and yet fought against so vehemently in our culture.
Self preservation is considered wrong, and yet we detest self loathing as well.
The hardest words to say are.... "I want"

 

[riff]

A manwich is not a sandwich, it's a gay dude getting DPed by 2 other gay dudes.... Oho hohohoho

A Token
-by Robert Creeley

My lady
fair with
soft
arms, what

can I say to
you-- words, words
as if all
worlds were there

 

[Dillinger]

These are all wonderful insights and I am really enjoying this thread!

However - I'm not sure I quite got across what I meant by our usage of the word "is." It has nothing to do with "I" or "I want"...

Very simply put - whenever - and I mean EVERY time - the word "is" is used - it seems no different than saying "the map IS the territory"...

(Please also note how I made my point without using the word "is" except as an example.)

 

[Guest]

 

[Dillinger]

LL - nice to see you join the discussion! *smile*

Your statement captures part of what I'm trying to express.

The other part appears to me to be much scarier than mere laziness. We all tend to be very much influenced by the symbols that surrround us. These symbols include words... especially words. And the constructs and limitations of language. We might start out by lazily saying that "something IS something" but, the more we say it the more we forget that we are making a comparison - the more we believe that even though we originally might have meant "something APPEARS TO ME to be very much like this something else" what we actually start to believe is that "something IS something" - it no longer becomes a metaphor to us - it becomes our reality.

(Again, I would like to point out that this post does not include the use of the word "is" in order to make my point. Wording this in a way that avoided the use of "is" was difficult at times and it took me longer to post this than it would have otherwise. However I would like to make a suggestion that everyone give it a try - on at least one post. It REALLY makes you stop and realize how much we rely on that word and it also forces our minds into realizing that we talk in absolutes even if that wasn't our initial intention. I think it would be great that for the rest of this thread everyone avoids using the word "is" to make their point - except, of course, in examples like "something IS something"...)

(I'd also like to point out that in my parenthetical commentary above on the usage of the word "is" that I also did not use the word "is")

re: the above - again, no "is" even in my commentary on my commentary

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

Perhaps
perchance
Mayhap
maybe
could
might
potentially



As I always say, definitions! If I have not defined something, it may not be solid!
"Is" is definitive, it blocks any leeway, any potential for change.

However, there are exceptions......

for example......


Dilly, you is the shit!

(some times grammar needs to be thrown out the window on its ample ass)

 

[naudiz]

I love you people.

Subjective vs. objective. This is one of my big pet peeves, and I mentioned as much on the thread on that topic. To elaborate: the inability to determine perception from truth. When I worked in a nursing home, this was something we were trained to take into consideration discerning what we observed from what we believe we observed.

Example: let's say I'm walking down the hall and I hear a yell and a thump. I look behind me and I see a resident sprawled out on the floor, and another resident sitting in a chair with her legs stretched out. Now subjectively, I would say that one resident tripped the other, either by accident or intent. Objectively, I don't know that. Objectively, I heard the yell and thump and observed the scenario after the fact.

Yet there are people who would argue as fact that they know what they saw, that being resident A tripped resident B.

Small differences, perhaps, but they drive me up the wall. Another one that bothers me: the claim that the fall of the Ancient Greek civilization is directly related to the practice of homosexuality. Why? Because it was an accepted practice! How does this lead to the fall of the civilization? It was an accepted practice! Of course it was an accepted practice for a long, long time, but this only becomes significant toward the end because it helps to illustrate an argument. Truth? Bah. We don't need no stinkin' truth.

People will construct the most interesting visions of reality from the puzzle pieces of their observations.

Is it laziness? Maybe it's mental self-defense. The world is a big place. There is a lot going on. This highly advanced intellectual capacity to think outside oneself is just ducky, except it leads to the realization of just how small one is, barely a fleck of paint on the canvas making up the big picture. Besides, the human brain is wired toward drawing conclusions. It takes mental fortitude to stop and reconsider.

I've run afoul of the 'I, me, myself' situation. It's funny, because when I've been called to task for using those terms, often I wasn't trying to be selfish. On the contrary, I was expressing my perceptions and labeling them thus precisely to show that I wasn't declaring my observation as truth, but merely declaring an opinion. "I observe..." rather than "It is..." I would consider it rude for someone to use 'we' because I wouldn't appreciate someone speaking for me when I'm capable of doing so myself, but it's all a matter of upbringing, I suppose.

So what is a paradigm?

Oh, about twenty cents.

 

[Dillinger]

"I observe..." rather than "It is..." seems to me to be a much more sane and open minded way to view the world and our impressions of the people we interact with.

 

[naudiz]

Allow me to laugh yet again at my paradigm joke.

ho ho ho i am teh funnay

Thank you.

Now see, Dillinger, I agree. However, most of the people who've met me will tell you I'm barking mad, so there you are. I think the line between ultimate reason and ultimate madness is wafer thin, and we're all somewhere in the middle.

 

[freescorfr]

I waken up to some very interesting posts and Luscious Lionness back on the board.

Naudiz touches on our almost absolute belief in the objective truth cause and effect, as being the way in which our world "is".
Like many models it works well - but only so far.

I, didn't Dilly mean to divert from your line of thinking on the "is"; there seem to be a few of us who hold your viewpoint. I often employ the notion of "re-framing" in this context: every "is" can be re-framed and the picture looks different.

The deflection to the "I" illustrates my concern with the way in which language can de-responsibilise us from our actions and from what we produce within ourselves.

 

[Dillinger]

Kudos to the following people for making their point without using the word "is"

freescorfr
naudiz
Luscious Lioness

GreenEyedGirl - you get a special recommendation for "Dilly, you is the shit!" but you blew it on "Is" is definitive" - which means, of course, now you have to blow me...

Let me throw out the challenge once more:

No matter what direction this thread takes see if you can post without using the word "is." It REALLY makes you stop and realize how much we rely on that word and it also forces our minds into realizing that we talk in absolutes even if that wasn't our initial intention. I think it would be great that for the rest of this thread everyone avoids using the word "is" to make their point - except, of course, in examples like "something IS something"...

 

[Private Vasquez]

I AM a chickenhawk, hunting for a chicken

 

[Dillinger]

"AM" falls into the same category as, "is" *I say to Private Vasquez with hawk-like precision*

 

[Private Vasquez]

that was a little trickeration I was tryin' out....chicken!

 

[freescorfr]

Dilly your presence invades even France. Today, I took my son for lunch in our fine local reataurant, and we proceded to enjoy conversation over the meal without the "is" word. I even saw new nuances, between the crudites and the volaille a la creme, of equivalence and implied tautology writ everywhere. Thank you, you gift has given me great pleasure today.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Is, Are, Am

Perfect examples of limitations we place upon ourselves and others simply by speaking them.

Fred is an asshole as opposed to Fred behaved like an asshole last night. A difinitive difference exists between the two phrases, a difference that few of us are aware of, or care to become aware of.

In the first, we have declared that Fred IS something... that there is no way Fred can be anything else in our minds. In the second, we have said that Fred behaved poorly, but we have not limited him to becoming his behavior. This doesn't just apply to negative remarks either. Regardless of their usage those words narrow our perception of reality.

I wrote a paper in a Creative Writing class in High School. When I turned in the rough draft, the teacher passed it back to me with notation to rewrite the paper without using the word 'is' or any of it's variations more than three times. It took me forever to write a three page paper, but it made me think about how often we throw those words out there without thought, just because they seem easier to use.

 

[Dillinger]

I wish I had that teacher, PCG...

There is a HUGE difference between those two phrases. And we are all too often ready to accept the first phrase as fact rather than realize the second phrase might be closer to reality.

 

[GreenEyedGirl]

GreenEyedGirl - you get a special recommendation for "Dilly, you is the shit!" but you blew it on "Is" is definitive" - which means, of course, now you have to blow me...

But I was attempting to illustrate that to every rule there may be an exception. Plus I was adding humour through innuendo, which I believe to be one of your favorite things.
Please accept my apologies, as my intent was sincere.
Now, since you have such an interest in pants stuffing, which I believe was mentioned in another thread, it would be mightily hard to "blow you" with all that stuffing in the way.

 

[Guest]

 

[naudiz]

I experienced a great deal of pleasure at making your list, Dillinger, and I endeavor to meet your challenge by not using the word 'is' or its derivatives anywhere in this post except to illustrate that I am not using it.

While challenging, the attempt to shift one's train of thought into an area less traveled by the conscious mind seems oddly refreshing; at the same time, I find myself questioning the very basic concepts of conscious thought and the assumptions that go with it.

To seem or not to seem, that appears to be the question.

One might note the ambiguous nature of this post, but one might also take a lesson in this observation; the ambiguous nature of reality might be more noticeable with the veil of the erroneous 'is' torn away. We define our surroundings as much as they define us.

And now, I pause. There might be dinner in the fridge, and my experience at this time consists of indescribable hunger.

Strictly speaking, one might view terms such as 'might' and 'seem' as derivatives of 'is' though I would argue that they are not definitive so much as implicative, thus the 'is' trap seems neatly evaded.

All a matter of perception, one supposes.