Thursday, April 12, 2012

Speaking for others

Here I go doing it and I think this is something we all do to some degree but it troubles me somewhat. I have some weird rich ore vein of honesty running through me that is UNhelpful. I cannot agree to a proposition without ironing out and declaring all exceptions. This makes it exceedingly hard to have an interesting intellectual discussion that goes anywhere. It's like having or being the hall monitor pointing out every deviation from the prescribed code of honesty. And we all know how that frees up creativity to explore novel ideas. Or, not ALL of us I must be hall-monitorly honest and say.

And so I wonder, is this rigid honesty self-blockading. Getting co-conversants to agree with banal true minuitae constantly interrupts the flow of a wave that might actually take us somewhere. And cutting off someone not only bogarts their wave but ends up giving them the feeling (it seems from the outside - full disclosure now ; )) that there is little point in pursuing the topic or that for some reason they cannot articulate they need to dig in and really insist their point through whatever devious and confusing labyrinthine means necessary to maintain a sense of their own superiority or rightness.

I create a tiny pen from which to lust after the landscape of stimulating discussion. And finished my build there I sit, longingly looking out at all that I have made sure to keep myself from.

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